


Child's Play

by anno_Hreog



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Arranged Marriage, Blood, Captivity, Casual Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, F/M, Humiliation, Jotunheim, M/M, Miscarriage, Non Consensual, Other, Underage Character, Violence, implied child sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:38:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anno_Hreog/pseuds/anno_Hreog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jotunheim is in ascendance, and Asgard has lost. </p><p>After a botched attempt at stealing the Casket of Ancient Winters, Thor is bartered for peace and promised to be wed to Loki, the youngest son of Laufey. </p><p>Enter two very unwilling parties, an extended stint of captivity, a formal courting gone haywire, negotiations and treaties and dowries up the wazoo, and a very bratty, horny, but sly jotunn!kid!Loki, who's toying with a very put-upon older Thor, who has to grit his teeth and go along with the long-drawn-out engagement to ensure peace. </p><p>Even if young prince Loki likes dragging him around on a leash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thor's Very Bad No Good Idea

**Author's Note:**

> I had to go fill in my own [norsekink prompt](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/11219.html?thread=25385427#t25385427) because I'm impatient, go figure. 
> 
> These are frost giants and Aesir. Still, it's underage. Be warned.
> 
>  
> 
> ETA: early chapters will include non-con and violence, and the humiliation is here to stay.

 

 

On the second day, Fandral had started shaking from the cold so badly they piled up on him like wolves. Thor rattled the bars and yelled, “It’s freezing in here! He’s dying!”

Their Jotnar gaoler strolled by and peered in. “It’s stinking hot in here, Asgard. You’re out of the storm. What more do you want? In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t an inn.”

Thor glared up at him. “You’ve taken our furs, and we have no fire. If you mean to kill us, do so with honor and slit our throats. Make it a clean death.”

“That’s not up to me, Asgard,” said the jotunn with a sneer. He was a good two feet taller than Thor, and his skin was icy blue, and by the Nine, he was standing half naked in this cold, the worn leather cloak leaving his chest bare to the elements.

“Then bring someone who has the balls to decide.”

The jotunn growled and pounded his fist on the bars. Thor took an inadvertent step back, and a gob of spit landed at his feet.

“You’re in no position to make demands, Asgard cur.” And he left, taking the torch with him.

Volstagg started running in circles around the cell. “It’s best to keep moving, keep your blood pumping, else we’ll fall asleep and not wake.”

It was a good idea, but the slight sheen of sweat he’d worked up cooled down quickly, making him colder than ever, and then he was shivering worse than Fandral.

“We’re all going to _die_ ,” croaked Fandral miserably. “I don’t want to die here on this miserable lump of ice surrounded by stinking _men_. Sif, dear Sif, sit closer to me. I want to look at something beautiful when I die. Shove over, Hogun. Make room for the lovely lady.”

“You’re not going to die,” said Hogun gruffly, but made room for Sif anyway. Sif just gritted her teeth where she was, sitting hunched over next to Volstagg and rubbing her hands furiously.

“I _told_ you this was a bad idea,” she muttered. “I _told_ you it was a foolhardy plan.”

Thor kept pacing. It had hardly been a plan, more of a spur-of-the moment flash of inspiration. They would sneak into Jotunheim and steal the Casket of Ancient Winters. That would tip the scales in Asgard’s favor for once, level the playing field against the overwhelming brute force of Jotunheim. At least it would eliminate the threat of everlasting winter which Jotunheim held over their heads, ever since Asgard’s defeat on the fields of Údaìnsakr and Jotunheim had emerged preeminent of all the Nine Realms. Theirs was an uneasy truce, a peace held on thin ice. And Thor had gone and shattered it.

Odin would be furious. Perhaps it was best that they died here, in this cramped bitterly cold cell in Jotunheim, before his father found out what he had done.

Or rather, had failed to do.

A rustling noise came from down the darkened hallway outside the cell. Thor stopped, and strained his ears. Perhaps the gaoler had a change of heart. Perhaps someone higher-up had decided they would be more useful alive. Perhaps.

The crystal was cold and blue, but not overly bright, but Thor raised his arm over his eyes, blinded by the sudden light. When his eyes adjusted, two jotunns stood in front of the cell, looking them over curiously.

They were smaller than the Jotnar he had seen, bundled up in small mountains of lavish furs, and it took a moment for Thor to realize that they were but children. The smaller one had a delicate, fine-boned face that rose above heavy white furs, fastened at his throat by an intricate gold clasp in the shape of entwined serpents with sparkling green gems for eyes and scales. It was a princely cloak, and its wearer, Thor realized, a prince.

The child prince of the Frost Giants barely came up to Thor’s chest.

His brother wore the pelt of a black wolf and was a hair shorter than Thor, not young children, Thor assessed, but barely out of puberty.

“Look at all that… _fur,”_ said the smaller one, barely hiding his disgust and fascination. “Helblindi was right. They’re like animals.”

He was the one who had slim, twisted horns that swept back from his temples like a mountain goat. Thor grabbed the ice-cold bars.

“We need a fire,” he said. “Our friend is ill. You have to give us something. We can’t survive in this climate.”

The taller one razed a glance over him, coldly. “It speaks. Loki, did you hear that? It’s speaking to us.”

The little one, Loki, only giggled. “I’m not deaf, Bỳleistr. It’s as if you’ve gone to the stables and your _elglar_ wants to have a nice chat while he’s being saddled. That would be quite wonderful to have, don’t you think? A talking mount. But isn’t it odd, hearing clever speech coming out from all that fur?”

“What is your fascination with their hairy heads, Loki?” said the one called Bỳleistr. “There, we’ve seen them. I want to go back now. I’m getting hungry, and Skaði will be cross if we’re late for tea.”

“Please,” said Thor before they could turn around. The words burned like coal in his throat, but he would get on his knees if it would save his friend. “We’re not like you. My friend has taken ill from the cold. He won’t last if he doesn’t get help. A fire or a blanket. Please.”

“Come along, Loki.” Bỳleistr was tugging at the smaller one’s cloak. “This is getting tiresome, and the king will not be pleased that we snuck in to see the prisoners.”

“The king?” Thor shook the bars again. “I wish to speak to the king. He will see me. I am Thor Odinson – I am a prince of Asgard. We wish to speak to –”

Bỳleistr kicked the bars quite viciously. “It’s _noisy._ Let’s kill it.”

Loki was looking at Thor, his odd crimson eyes narrowing. “No.”

“Fine, I didn’t mean _kill_ kill it. It’ll probably die anyway. The Aesir halfthings are weak, the Farbauti-king says.”

“I wonder how much fur it has,” Loki was saying, curiously, like a child at the zoo. “Do you think it’s hairy all over?”

Bỳleistr made a face. “How disgusting. You’re so perverse, Loki. Who cares what the halfthings look like?”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” said Loki. “Farbauti-king says the halfthings aren’t _whole_. They can either have a cock or a cunt, but not both. Don’t you want to know what that looks like?”

“You’re making me sick, Loki,” said Bỳleistr, though that seemed to have stirred his interest. The warning bells were going off in Thor’s head. The little one seemed to sense his trepidation and stepped closer to the bars. He uncupped his hands and held out a small gleaming crystal.

“Look here, filthy animal, can you feel the heat?” he asked. A cruel little smile was curling at the corner of his lips. He tossed the crystal into the cell and Thor snatched it up. The stone flared up with warmth. The others huddled around him, and the heat emanating from the tiny crystal washed over them like a balm.

“There’s more where that came from, if you do as I say,” said the small jotunn.

“What do you want?” Thor asked grimly. He could see where this was going, and steeled himself for the humiliation. The jotunn child grinned, a coy look too old for his child’s face.

“Which one of you is the cunt?”

Thor could feel the backs of the Warriors Three stiffen, and his mouth tightened in a thin line. He wasn’t answering this spoiled child, not for anything, this was _absurd_ –

“I am.”

Sif stood up and walked to the bars of the cell.

“Sif, no –”

“Shut up, Thor. I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

The jotunn princes were watching them, their eyes glittering like cats in a dairy.

“It’s got _more_ hair,” said Bỳleistr. “There’s more on top of its head, and it’s hanging down like an _elglar’s_ tail.”

“But not on its face,” said Loki. “Its face is clean, except for the brows. See? I think it’s prettier than the other ones. I want to look at it. Strip, cunt,” he ordered Sif.

“No!” roared Thor.

Loki didn’t deign to look at him. “I wasn’t talking to you, _fuzzy_. I was talking to the cunt.”

Sif swallowed hard, glaring at the jotunn prince all the while. “If I remove my protective layers, I will die.”

“That sounds like fun,” said Bỳleistr. “Do you want to see how long it takes them to freeze to death, Loki? We could take it outside and stick it in a snowbank. I’ll go get my astrolabe.”

“No,” said Loki. “It might be the important one. It’s the only one with a cunt. I guess the hairy faces are the cocks, then. I want to see what they look like.”

“All right,” said Sif before Thor could say anything. “But if I do it, I want another crystal.” She added quickly at the annoyed looks on their faces. “It’s only reasonable to add what warmth you are taking away.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, then fiddled inside his voluminous furs and drew out another, larger crystal, and nodded.

Resigned, Sif started unlacing her vambraces and her chestplate in a matter-of-fact way, as if she were only about to oil her tack out in the courtyard. Thor couldn’t stand any more of this.

“No,” he said, and shoved her back. Sif glared at him. “No,” he repeated. “I will do it.”

The older jotunn boy sneered at him. “You don’t get a say in this. No one’s interested in you, halfthing _animal_. We have three other cocks in the cage. You’re not _important._ ”

“You wanted to see if there’s hair all over?” said Thor quickly, desperately. The little one’s eyes were glittering, and his mouth was open in a delighted smile.

“I’ll show you,” said Thor. “It’s not like a horse at all. There’s a fine growth of hair over my chest, yes, but not dense as on my head or my beard. And there’s less and less as you go down my stomach, only a trickle as you pass my navel, but when you reach my cock there’s a fine golden bush –”

“I want to see it!” said Loki, clapping his hands. “I wish to see your fur. I wish to _touch_ it.”

Bỳleistr squealed, revolted and titillated at once. “You’re _disgusting_ , Loki! Next you’ll make the cock mount the cunt to see them couple.”

“ _You’re_ the disgusting one. I suppose they’ll couple the same as all the livestock do,” said Loki, but he sounded intrigued. “Go on then, _fuzzy_. Remove your clothes. Show me what you look like underneath.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. More Bad Ideas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence, Humiliation, Non-con, and Loki's not getting older any faster either. Be warned before proceeding any further.

A balmy warmth enveloped him as the jotunn prince approached the bars of the cell, and Thor shivered despite the heat. 

“Go on then,” said the boy. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.” He closed his fist over the stone, and just as abruptly the heat vanished.

“I haven’t.” 

His armor clattered to the ground first, and the luxurious warmth flared up again. It was like sitting before a roaring fireplace in the middle of winter with all the windows open, the cold kept at bay by the immediate presence of the fire. 

Behind him, the Warriors Three edged to the back of the cell, discreetly turning their faces away, so as not to bear witness to his humiliation at the hands of this boy. Sif didn’t, only lowering herself to a crouch, as if ready to pounce at the slightest danger.

His woolen tunic was next, and he stood in his thin cotton undershirt. 

“Look at his arms, Loki,” the elder prince said, lips twisted in disgust. “It’s like your old _rogglehog_ when he got so old he lost half the hair on his back. Remember? You kept that stupid little thing after all its teeth fell out and you had to feed it mush with your finger. Right up until Skaði sat on it, and it _popped_. Remember? That was so funny!”

“I remember, shut up,” said Loki quietly, not taking his eyes off the triangle of skin that showed at the open collar. “Go on,” he told Thor, and Thor pulled his undershirt over his head and tossed it aside carelessly. 

“Oh….”

It was a little sigh that escaped despite itself, and Thor knew where it came from. 

Thor couldn’t feel the cold in this bubble of heat, and in the eerie blue light and the pall of silence that fell around them, it felt as if there were only the two of them, himself and the little jotunn prince.

The boy stretched his thin fingers, and the tips ghosted over the growth of hair on his chest, not quite touching, then accidentally brushing over them. The boy pulled back, startled, and after some hesitation, he reached out again.

“What is it like, Loki?” his brother called out, but Loki didn’t answer. “Is it bristly? Does it smell?”

“Yes,” said Loki, not really listening to the other boy. 

The little jotunn didn’t look at his face, his intense gaze fixed on Thor’s chest, and he was holding his breath, Thor realized, as he gathered his courage and pressed gently against Thor’s bare skin.

His fingers were cold, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and slowly, gingerly, they stroked down his chest and over the planes of his stomach.

“You’re warm,” said the boy softly. He seemed to have forgotten about his brother, but he wasn’t really speaking to Thor, either. His soft breath blew over Thor’s chest hairs. 

“You’re not so cold yourself,” said Thor, and he saw a little smile at the corner of the boy’s lips as he looked up at Thor. Their eyes met, and the boy bit his lower lip nervously. Thor had to remind himself, that yes, this was only a boy, an innocent –

The fingers went lower, brushing over the patch of hair below his navel and stopped. 

“Lose the breeches,” ordered the boy prince. “Let’s see that bush you promised me.”

He felt a muscle twitch in his jaw.

Gritting his teeth, Thor unbuckled the belt and shimmied out of his breaches, staring stonily down at the top of the boy’s head. 

A sharp giggle came from behind the younger prince. 

“He’s almost as large as Thrym,” said Byleistr, laughing. “At least he will be if you touch it. Go on then, Loki, touch his cock. See if he can get it up. I wager he’ll grow larger when he’s excited.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Loki, annoyed. “If he had a cock as large as Thrym’s he wouldn’t be able to walk.”

“How would _you_ know how large Thrym is?” asked Byleistr sharply. 

“I don’t,” said Loki turning to his brother. “I was only guessing –” This was his chance.

Quickly, Thor reached out through the bars and slung an arm around the boy’s neck. Byleistr screamed.

“Scream all you want, little jotunn beast,” growled Thor. “I’m going to snap this kid’s neck unless you do as I say.”

Byleistr didn’t stop screaming, and Thor tightened his hold. Loki gasped and choked for breath and he struggled and kicked out in a futile way. 

“Send word to the king,” Thor snarled at Byleistr. “Tell him Thor Odinson wishes to speak to him. Hurry, or your brother dies.”

That seemed to get through to the other boy. He dashed out of the hallway, almost slipping and falling in his haste.

“How do you like this, little monster?” Thor reached down with one hand to do up his breeches again. “Do you like it better? How about if I press down harder on your windpipe? Does that _excite_ you?” 

He kicked the crystal, which had fallen on the ground over to Sif, who snatched it up. “Get that to Fandral.”

“Thor, but you’re –”

“He needs the warmth.”

Sif ignored him and pull his woolen tunic over his head. The jotunn boy took that opportunity to wriggle free, and almost slipped out of his grasp. Thor grabbed him by the arm. His fingers dug in so tight he was sure he was leaving bruises, and he felt an unfamiliar thrill run down his spine. 

“No you don’t, you little snake,” said Thor, and the little jotunn spat in his face. 

Thor yanked him close, banging the boy's head against the bars and the boy cried out, just as the sound of footsteps and shouting filled the air. A trickle of blood rolled down the boy’s temple and into the grooves of his strange horns, and Thor stomped down on the spark of pity that flickered inside. 

Guards beat on the bars with their fists and yelled, but Thor didn’t let go. “I wish to speak with the king!” he roared. “I will have an audience with Laufey!”

Suddenly, the guards stopped their raging, and falling silent, parted to make way for a jotunn lord. Thor recognized him. It was Thrym, host of the Armies of the North and the lord of Þhrymheimr, the largest of Jotunn territories. The jotunn lord’s face didn’t move as he took in the scene.

“Let go of the prince, and you will see the king,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling with odd harmonics in the cramped cell.

“Your word?” Thor demanded.

“You have it,” said Thrym. Thor released the boy, and Loki ran from him, not to his brother, but to the warlord, and Thrym enveloped him in his great leathery cloak. 

At a minute gesture from the lord, the guards unlocked the door to the cell and dragged them out one by one. 

“Wait,” said Thrym. Byleistr held on possessively to one arm, but Loki clung to his neck, burying his face in the great warlord’s shoulder. 

“Þjazi,” said Thrym, and a jotunn soldier, larger than the rest stepped forward. Thrym gave Thor a kindly smile.

“You are the one who laid hands on my prince?” he asked. 

“I am,” said Thor, unflinching. It was only what he expected from these Jotnar. The one called Þjazi pulled out a corded whip, and the one who held onto Thor proceeded to drag him back into the cell alone.

“Twenty strokes,” ordered Thrym. “That is only fair.”

“No!” 

But it wasn’t Sif or Hogun or Volstagg who cried out. It was the small jotunn prince. 

“No,” said Loki again. His face peeked out of his voluminous white furs, from where he was almost perched on the lord Thrym’s arm. His icy blue skin had gone pale and wan, and he looked almost frightened and far younger than he probably was.

The air was still, as Jotnar and Asgardian alike waited with bated breath. The lord Thrym sighed deeply, but then, slowly he smiled again.

“What is your wish, sweet prince?” 

Loki pointed at the captive Asgardians and singled out Volstagg. He leaned close to Thrym’s ear and whispered, so loud that everyone could hear.

“That one. Take the fat one. I want him to watch.” 

At a nod from Thrym, the guard holding the burly man dragged him into the cell instead of Thor and briskly divested him of his armor and tunic.

They dragged Thor back out into the corridor before Thrym, and kicked his feet so he would stumble and kneel. 

“And twenty is absurd,” said Loki. “Make it thirty.”

Thor roared and yelled and screamed obscenities, and it took three Jotnar to hold him in place, as lash after lash came down on Volstagg’s back, until the skin broke and the blood ran down his friend’s back and pooled on the floor and froze.

Byleistr looked bored, and he left sometime between eleven and thirteen, claiming he was hungry. But all the while, the youngest prince of Jotunheim stayed, and didn’t once take his eyes off Thor’s face.

 

At eighteen strokes Volstagg fainted. 

“Wake him up,” ordered Thrym, and one of the guards threw a bucket of water over Volstagg’s head. It froze in icicles before it finished dripping off, but the large man awoke, shivering, and shook his head like an exhausted draught horse.

“Resume,” said Thrym.

“No,” protested Thor. “You’ll kill him.”

“What does it matter to you, Asgard?” Thrym asked mildly. “You will have your audience with the king unharmed. But this one,” he nodded at Volstagg, “your loyal servant will take your beating for you. Thirty lashes. It is the wish of my prince.”

“I will take the rest,” said Thor. “I will take the beating. Beat me. Leave him be.”

“That is not up to you, Asgard,” said Thrym, but Loki tugged at Thrym’s collar, wanting to be let down. He stood over Thor and looked down at him curiously.

“You will take the beating for your servant, _fuzzy_?” he asked. Thor glared at him, nostrils flaring.

“He is my _friend_.”

“He is my friend, _my lord_ ,” Thrym corrected him, with an undercurrent of warning, but Loki waved him off idly, and smiled at Thor. Jotunn smiles meant nothing good, Thor was starting to realize.

He took a tentative step toward Thor, his expression sweet as if he had found a nest of ducklings in the rushes, and his foot slid out from under his furs.

“Crawl on your belly, then,” said Loki. “Crawl and kiss my foot, _fuzzy_ , and we’ll forgive the twelve lashes.”

His knees already bruised on the cold floor, Thor’s back stiffened, and he wanted to strangle this little monster. Loki looked away and called to the guard.

“Turn the fat one over, Þjazi,” he said. “Give the rest of the whipping on his great belly. Perhaps it will burst.”

“No!” 

Volstagg was coughing and the pain of that was making him groan again. Sif and Hogun’s eyes were pleading, but they weren’t pleading with Thor to desist. After what they’d been through, this was only a little thing.

Thor got down on his hands and knees and lowered himself further so his chin touched the ground. It was only a few steps away, and the hem of the fur cloak tickled his forehead. 

But before he could press his lips to the boy’s boot, it pulled away, and without warning, a violent kick slammed into the side of his head. 

After that, thankfully, he blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sighs* and I thought I was writing a marriage fic. But it _is_.


	3. The Gift that Just Keeps Giving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence, Non-con, captivity, talk of forced impregnation, and still underage. Oh, and babies. There should be a warning for that, too.

The boy didn’t kick him that hard, but Thor’s body felt like it had gone through a bruiser. After days of cold and misery and uncertainty, it finally gave way, and he slept as if he had been drugged. Perhaps he was.

In dreams, Volstagg’s flogging played over and over again, only to be replaced by Sif or Hogun or Fandral, while Thor stood by, fighting at his bonds and helpless. In the last rendition, it was the jotunn prince held down by unseen hands, while Thor wielded the whip and pleaded for it to stop at the same time.

Thor cried out and tumbled out of the bed. 

The room was dry and warm, and his blanket was clean. His hand fumbled around and found a bowl of ice-cold water, and he gulped it down to the lees. A smell of bitter, medicinal herbs filled the air.

A low groan from the other side of the room jolted him back to reality. It was Volstagg, still out, and laid on his belly. A jotunn healer was crouched over him, pressing a greenish salve to his welts and bruises. From where Thor could see, the blood had been cleaned away.

In an instant, the soldier in him was back, quickly scoping out the door left ajar, the one unarmed jotunn with his back to him. This was his chance to escape.

“Where are the others?” he demanded. 

The jotunn healer turned around and gave Thor a measured look. “You’re awake. I thought you’d sleep a few more hours. How is your head?” 

“Better than ever,” growled Thor. “Answer the question.”

“They are under guard. Their fate is yet undecided,” said the jotunn. He was simply dressed, the loincloth unadorned and his leather cloak lined with dark fur, and he frowned at Thor. “Of course, you could assault me and run. Go on, then, Asgard, take your chance and escape.”

Thor ignored that.

“Take me to them,” he commanded, instead. Thor stood up, an advantage that quickly vanished when the jotunn got to his feet, a good head taller than Thor, and sneered down his aquiline nose at him. Then he shrugged. 

“As you wish.”

He led Thor out to the corridor, which was three stories from the ground and looked upon an enclosed courtyard. This was not in the depths of the dungeons at all, but in an airy wing of the palace. 

Below in the courtyard, a fighting ring had been set up, and with a start, Thor recognized Hogun. Dressed jotunn style in only a loincloth, he was rolling and dodging and aiming his jabs at a jotunn warrior who looked almost twice his size, if not in height, then in bulk. Even from this distance, he was shiny with sweat, and Thor could see that he had been at this for quite a while and that he was tiring. He barely dodged out of the way of the jotunn’s great fist, and stumbled into the thick rope of the ring.

An older jotunn in the somber robes of a scholar clapped his hands twice, and the jotunn fighter backed off and went to his corner. Hogun hobbled to his, and stumbled.

A shriek of laughter came from the sidelines. The elder prince, Bỳleistr jumped to his feet and howled in glee, but Loki, the younger one, seemed to crawl back into his seat and sulk.

“It’s not _fair_ , Bỳleistr,” Thor could hear him say. “Iði is so much bigger than the Asgardian. It’s not a fair fight.”

“Then put two of them in,” countered Bỳleistr. “Iði will still beat them, hands down. Put the _cunt_ in the ring –”

An older jotunn cleared his throat disapprovingly, and Bỳleistr rolled his eyes but amended his words. 

“Put the _female_ in together with the _male_ for the next round. But if Iði wins, he gets to fuck both of them, right here.”

“But what if the _cunt_ – all right, all right – what if the female gets kittens? Can it?” asked Loki.

“ _She_ ,” corrected their tutor. “And yes, if Iði couples with the Asgardian female, she may become heavy with _child_.”

Loki and Bỳleistr were bouncing in their seats with excitement. 

“I want one! I want an Asgardian kitten!” cried Loki. “Bỳleistr, ask Iði if he will fuck him now. We both know Iði was going to win anyway. Ask him if he will fuck all of them. All of them can have kittens! Except the long-haired one. That one’s mine.”

“No, no,” said their tutor. “Only the _female_ can carry a child. And only the long-haired one is female.”

“Oh,” said Loki, looking disappointed for a moment. “The short-haired ones can’t have kittens? Even if they grow out their hair?”

“ _Yours?”_ said Bỳleistr scathingly. “What do you mean by _yours?_ You’re not thinking of taking it to bed, are you?”

“Don’t be obscene,” snapped Loki. “That’s disgusting. I just think it’s pretty, is all.”

But Bỳleistr cackled and made lewd noises at him until Loki kicked him off his chair.

Thor felt a growl rise up his throat, and he shook off the pacifying hand on his arm. The jotunn healer sighed. 

“What will you do, jump down three stories and fight your way through an armed guard?” the healer asked mildly. “This is the younger princes’ household. The lesser prisoners have been put under their protection.”

“Well, I do not think much of your _protection_ ,” snarled Thor. “What do you mean by _lesser_ prisoners?”

The healer shrugged. “I beg your pardon. I meant no offense. But you are after all a prince, as you proclaimed so loudly when you demanded to see the king of Jotunheim, and after recent events, it was deemed imprudent to entrust the well-being of such a… more high-ranking personage, to their… ah… tender mercies.”

Thor looked down at the courtyard. The tutor stood up and clapped his hands again, and outside the ring, jotunn servants pushed Hogun back into the fight. 

He swerved out of the way of the first punch, and made a flying leap and hooked an arm around Iði’s neck to bring him down. 

It would have been a good move, if Iði had not been so stolidly built and impossible to take down. Hogun hung from his neck until the jotunn plucked him off, threw him to the ground like a rag doll, and put one foot on his chest. 

With a roar of triumph, the jotunn warrior reached down and tore the loincloth off Hogun, and pulled him up by his thighs as the man struggled and attempted to squirm out of his grip. Bỳleistr cheered him on as Iði groped between Hogun's legs. Loki sat up straight to watch, his mouth open in an expectant _"oh!"_

“They are taking the brunt of my beating again,” whispered Thor. He turned to the healer. “I cannot allow it. I cannot be secluded and safe, while my friends bear the bulk of this abuse. Stop this. Please. I will submit myself to the prince’s ‘protection.’”

“You will put yourself in the way of the lash, Odinson?” The healer narrowed his eyes. “Because the youngest prince will single you out to see if you break. Make no mistake about that.”

Thor gazed back at him. “I’m counting on it. That way he will turn his spite only on me.”

The healer did not speak for a while. Finally he nodded. “As you wish.”

He made a gesture. Out of the shadows, servants scurried forward to take hold of Thor. The healer did not look back again, but he spoke as he walked away.

“You wished to speak to the king, Odinson. You have done so.”

 

§

 

The fight had ended so abruptly, and there was to be no fucking at the end of it. 

Bỳleistr pouted, but he did not care either way. He was of age and had already had his _white night_ two winters ago. It had been a cheerful, ribald event that spilled out into a wave of careless rutting all around, and much feasting and more fucking. 

At least that was what Loki had heard. _He_ had been too young at the time, and had been sent away, to be locked up in a tower with a pile of dusty old books. They had not even been very interesting books, probably picked out by someone who couldn’t even _read._

It was completely unfair, but so many things seemed so unfair lately. He almost tripped over a drooling toddler. He picked it up and made a face. Helblindi and Gerd’s third, another happy _accident_ from that night.

It laughed and swatted at him, and Loki scowled at it some more, but he held it close and sat down in a shadowy alcove and grit his teeth.

His guts ached and his face flared up stupidly, and the heat pooling low in his stomach was probably letting off a _stink_ , as if he was some mindless bitch in heat. 

He hated this, _hated hated hated it._ And it was all Bỳleistr’s fault.

The baby flailed on his lap and attempted to dash its own brains out on the stone floor. Loki clasped his fingers around its chest. Stupid baby. Gerd was very beautiful, but secretly Loki thought he was an idiot. Then again, Helblindi was an idiot for marrying him. Poor baby, it had a snowball’s chance in Asgard, with parents like that. 

Everyone was stupid. He wanted to take a sharp _stick_ and jab it into his own stomach—

“My prince, are you unwell?” 

Loki whirled around, and stood up stiffly, almost dropping Helblindi’s atrociously sticky child. Of all the… just his luck, it had to be lord Thrym. He wanted to tear something apart. 

But there was only Thrym’s arm, solid and strong and smelling so wonderful, and Loki clung to him, leaning on him heavily while pretending not to. He wasn’t helpless. This was just a new walk Loki invented. It would be all the rage at court.

Thrym took the baby from him, and balanced it on the other arm.

“What can the Farbauti-king possibly want now?” Loki asked peevishly. “I took in the filthy Aesir, and I’m feeding them out of my own purse. Bỳleistr’s not doing half the….” Loki pulled himself up primly. “I’m sorry to tell you this, lord Thrym, but my brother is a _horrible_ spendthrift and his household suffers _terribly_ for it. You are marrying yourself into _ruin.”_

Thrym only laughed – what a deep, _satisfying_ rumble he had. “I believe I can afford it for now, my prince,” he said, dandling the babe, “although, who knows how we will weather it when there are little ones afoot. What a fine child this is. Laufey’s line always bred true, and that’s a promise.”

Loki felt a flare of temper at that, like a flame burning him up to the top of his head.

“Thrym, glorious splendid Thrym, don’t marry Bỳleistr, don’t,” he pleaded. “You’ve no idea how he kicks. And he wet the bed until he was six. _And_ he smells like _fish_ when he sweats, and he cheats at cards! You _mustn’t.”_

Thrym laughed again and pulled Loki to him by the waist, and it felt as if Loki's entire left side was tingling with anticipation. “My sweet, lovely prince, but _you_ cheat at cards,” Thrym pointed out.

“But I cheat to _win!”_ yelped Loki. “How much more pathetic can you get when you cheat and _lose?”_

He started shaking with rage and unshed tears, and Thrym gathered him close to press dry lips to his forehead.

“No, not there,” Loki whispered, and wound his arms around the great warlord’s neck. “Kiss me on my lips, Thrym, and on my cunt. I want you, you can’t know how badly. _Please.”_

Strong hands picked him up and put him down, as if he were a _child._ He glared up at Thrym, his eyes stinging, and Thrym sighed.

“A moment, prince Loki,” said Thrym, “to pull yourself together?”

They had arrived at the door to his private chambers. The stupid baby cooed and dribbled, while Loki fumed. He jerked his head away when Thrym tried to wipe away that one fat tear that had escaped.

“That will not be necessary,” he said in a clipped voice, and pushed open the heavy double doors and entered the room.

His dam, the Farbauti-king sat cross-legged on a settee, looking calm and composed as always. Behind him stood the fuzzy, whey-faced Asgardian, looking grim and sour, and Loki felt a sneer curl at his lips. 

“What now?” he demanded, and the Farbauti-king sighed in that long suffering way, as if asking all the realms what he had done to have a son such as Loki.

“Loki, child of my body,” said the Farbauti-king, “it will please me greatly if you take another Asgardian into your household, until we have decided upon the best possible course of action. He will serve you in a personal capacity, and you will keep him with you at all times. Will you do this for me?”

Feeling Thrym’s gaze on his back, and staring into the stony face of that hateful Asgardian, Loki couldn’t bear all this, closing in on him at once.

“I will not!” he spat, stomping his foot.

“And why ever not?” asked the Farbauti-king, with exaggerated patience.

“It tried to kill me once.” Loki couldn’t believe he had to explain this to the one who had given birth to him. “I won’t have it near me so it can try again. Besides,” he said unkindly. “It’s _ugly._ My eyes will shrivel up just looking at it.”


	4. Stuck in a Hole (Just Keep Digging)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underage! Nudity! Unhelpful Help! Oh, and that leash I promised you.
> 
> [ETA] Oh hey, [under-base/Ric](http://under-base.tumblr.com) was taking commissions so I jumped at the chance, and asked her for [Child's Play Thor and Loki.](http://annohreog.tumblr.com/post/35521720156/underbase-was-taking-commissions-so-i-jumped-at) Loki looks a bit younger than I imagined him, but it's lovely lovely art, and hey, I might just write him that way later on because of this.

They were left in their chambers and ignored for three days. A servant boy, barely older than the youngest prince, came in twice a day to bring them food and empty their chamber pots.

Still, the pots stank, and Thor could really use a good wash. His hair was starting to itch, and judging from Sif’s increasingly sour expression, he was certain that the combined odor of four grown, unwashed men was making her dizzy and rather homicidal.

Volstagg’s back knit up quickly, though he still needed someone to rub that foul smelling salve into the raised pink welts. He was still sore though, and couldn’t lift his arms over his shoulders yet.

Hogun and Sif were stretching together on the floor, all they could do in the cramped confined space. When Thor, hesitantly choosing his words, asked Hogun how he was, Hogun looked up and said baldly, “You mean after that jotunn stuck his finger up my arse?”

Fandral’s laugh turned into a cough where he lay on the pallet. He was mending quickly as well.

“Nothing’s hurt as much as my pride,” said Hogun.

“Raring for a rematch, Hogun?” asked Fandral, “What if you win? Do you think they’d let you fuck the jotunn? Would you really?”

Hogun grinned at him, all teeth.

“Stop, you’re making Thor blush,” said Sif.

They fell silent as the door creaked open, and a jotunn, elegantly dressed, poked his head in, then jerked back immediately, feigning to faint from the smell.

“Euuugh, what’s this horrible stench?”

Servants flung open the door, and the jotunn ventured back in again, holding a scented kerchief to his nose and mouth. He was a higher ranking servant, a finicky scribe from the looks of him, and he sneered at the serving boy who had been bringing them their food.

“Didn’t you think of washing out their stalls? Washing _them?_ Did you just throw their slop at their heads and run?”

The boy glared insolently back at the scribe. “Din’t hear nothing about washing out their stalls. I just do as’m told.”

“Brainless cur,” the scribe curled his lip. “Bring out _that_ one,” he said, pointing at Thor with a manicured finger.

The servant boy took one look at Thor, then back at the scribe, and shook his head violently.

“Not worth the hide off my back getting near that one,” he said. “He’s a _child-killer.”_

Thor got to his feet. “I shall come with you,” he said quietly. The scribe looked surprised, as if a boar had looked him in the eye and addressed him in perfect court Jotunn.

He nodded curtly, and Thor followed him.

Thor was led behind the kitchens, and quickly stripped and tied to a post, and before he could protest, they hosed him down. At the sudden rush of water, Thor roared, shouting at the indignity of it. which only got him a mouthful of water. The servants in charge of the task were no more moved than if they’d been charged with scrubbing vegetables.

When it was over, a rough towel was thrown over his head, and Thor huddled shivering before a brass brazier that gave off a tired green light. The scribe brought him clean clothes, a plain tunic and trousers in the Asgardian style, and turned away as he quickly put them on. The shirt clung to his damp skin, and he wrung out the last of the water from his hair.

“Is it the youngest prince, or both?” he asked. The scribe looked away and sniffed.

“Prince Loki,” he said finally, “so behave yourself and try not to act like the filthy barbarian that you are, Asgard.”

“I won’t shit on the carpet, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” said Thor, laughing at the disgusted look on this bloodless jotunn’s face. A tiny jewel hung from the tip of his painted fingernail. No, this was no honest scribe.

“What is your name?” he asked, and the jotunn turned up his refined nose, not deigning to look at him. He was rather attractive, in a whippet slender and overly delicate way, unlike the great hulking giants he had faced on the battlefield, and Thor imagined he could take one such as this to his bed. He wondered what it would feel like to hold him down and fuck him, if he could make him moan in pleasure, beg for mercy.

Thor shook his head. He always fell for the cold ones, the ones who turned away in disdain. There was something wrong with him.

The jotunn seemed to feel the shift in Thor’s stance, and took care to put some distance between them, which amused Thor.

The youngest prince was sitting at a writing desk, and from the way he was drumming his fingers on the surface, he was annoyed. He didn’t turn around when Thor was brought in, and started scribbling furiously instead.

Another giant stood at the prince’s left, and Thor recognized him from fighting ring. He growled at Thor, but he was grinning, as if Thor was a joint of meat to tear into. The not-a-scribe cleared his throat, and Loki flapped his hand at him.

“I know you’re there, Fenja, I’m not completely deaf and blind. Just wait a moment, I’m in the middle of something. Amuse yourself with the Asgardian if you wish.”

Fenja made a distressed sound at that, and Iði chuckled. Loki was kicking his feet in impatience to finish whatever he was doing, and swung around on his chair as soon as he was done.

“What did I miss?” he demanded, looking from Iði to Fenja, and Iði shook his head.

“Fenja wouldn’t touch that one if you covered him in gold,” said the warrior, grinning.

Loki gave a heavy long-suffering sigh, unconsciously imitating the Farbauti-king. “That’s not what I meant. Anyway, who would want to? It’s a filthy, smelly animal. Stop teasing Fenja, Iði. He doesn’t like you that way.”

From the way Iði chuckled again and Fenja avoided looking at him, that didn’t seem to be exactly the case, but the timorous mating dance of the Jotnar was none of his concern.

“What will become of my people?” Thor demanded, and Iði gave another deep growl. Thor growled right back at him.

“Stop it, both of you, you’re no better than a pair of stupid dogs,” said the prince, clapping his hands. “If you want to fight, go do it in the ring. Which reminds me. First item of business. One of the Asgardians owes Iði a fuck.” He consulted his list. “Not you. The one with the short dark hair. Fighty, I’ll call him.”

“Hogun,” said Thor, “and he does _not_ owe anyone a fuck. He is your prisoner, and he will not be abused –”

“Shut up, shut up, I’m getting to that,” said Loki. “The crux of the question remains: _what_ are you?”

“They are first labeled as prisoners of the state,” said Fenja. “And now the three of them... no, four. The four lesser ones are ceded to you. So... household?”

“They didn’t swear allegiance,” argued Loki. “Anyway, we’re easily rid of two of them. Sickly and Pretty. I’ve sent the bill of ransom to their families.” He consulted his list again. “The other two, Fighty and Fatty aren’t important people –” he waved off Thor’s protest, as if he already anticipated being interrupted “—one doesn’t have family, and the other one’s family can’t pay ransom. We’re stuck with them. So, to follow that line of reasoning, if they’re prisoners, then Fighty doesn’t owe Iði a fuck because he was coerced –”

“I don’t need to take unwilling partners,” grumbled Iði, and Loki slapped the curve of the armrest impatiently.

“Everyone just keep on interrupting me, why don’t you? It’s not as if I’m actually your prince and son of the exalted god-king or anything. Oh wait, I am. So, all of you, just shut up,” said Loki jabbing a finger in Iði’s direction. Fenja just sighed, muttering _undignified_ under his breath.

“Iði can fuck Fighty if he’s household,” said Loki. “But he’s not household because he didn’t take an oath with me, and I don’t really trust him running around free without an oath, not with all those carving knives in the kitchen, do you? He’ll slit all our throats in the night and run. So here’s a solution. He and Fatty are classified as prisoners, prisoners without anyone to pay ransom. We could just slit their throats and be done with –”

“No!” roared Thor, and Loki aimed a kick at him. He was too far away and Loki only swung his foot through air.

“What did I say about interrupting me?” he said, in a bored voice. “It puts me in _such_ a lenient mood.”

“They have sworn an oath to me,” said Thor, “and I will vouch for them.”

Thor was right. The little jotunn prince had been avoiding looking at him because this finally made him look. He flinched fearfully, and quickly hid it, but Thor saw. He was afraid.

The boy willed himself to straight look at Thor. “You have been put in my household, Asgardian, that is true. But what assurances have you given me? What does it matter to me that they are sworn to you?”

It was Thor’s turn to swallow hard. He could feel his heart beating between his ears as the jotunn prince stared him down. Then, slowly, Thor got down to his knees. He heard the small intake of breath from the prince.

“I will serve you,” he said quietly. “I shall bow my head to you willingly, and my men will follow my lead. They will cause no trouble. I swear it. Only spare their lives.”

Loki was staring at him intently now, and Thor hunched his shoulders and looked down, hoping it gave the impression of meekness.

“Oh stop it,” said Loki with a snort. “You’re not fooling anyone, _fuzzy._ You just look stupid…er.”

But he stretched out his fingers and beckoned Thor to come closer, and Thor crawled to him on his knees.

“How do I know you won’t break your promise?” the boy whispered, and he sounded sad rather than petulant, weary as if he was used to broken promises and tattered faith by now.

“Do you remember my first promise to you?” Thor asked, and Loki nodded.

He was at a loss for words, staring wide-eyed as Thor slowly unbuttoned his tunic and pulled it over his head. Even Fenja was gaping at him now, as Thor got up briefly only to remove his breeches and then his smallclothes.

When he knelt again, he was naked. He placed his hands modestly on the flat of his thighs, but did not cower to hide his manhood.

Loki narrowed his eyes, then snapped his fingers at his stunned secretary.

“Oh pick your jaw off the floor, Fenja,” he said irritably. “Bring me the rosewood box on the third shelf, and be quick about it.”

Fenja hurried to comply. Loki opened the box and withdrew a thin gold chain attached to a thin gold collar.

“Come here, _fuzzy,”_ he said curtly to Thor. This was more than he had bargained for, but there was no backing out of it now. He crept closer to the prince and stretched out his neck. The collar was made of smooth fine leather, and Loki put three fingers between the collar and his neck so it fit without chafing. There was a little _bell_.

“Stand up,” ordered the Prince, and slowly Thor got to his feet. He could feel Loki’s eyes on his tumescent cock, and remembered how he’d promised the prince a ‘fine golden bush.’ He wished, fervently wished, nay he prayed to the great Tree, that he wouldn’t become excited, not now when so much was at stake, and this skittish child would shy away or snap at the slightest wrong move.

Loki looked away, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“Iði, Fenja. Someone get him something to cover up his junk. I won’t have him blinding the household with such hideousness.”

It was Fenja who adjusted the sash of a heavily brocaded loincloth of sea-green at his pelvis. But it was Iði who gave him a pinch on one cheek, the one that wasn’t on his face.

“Welcome to the service, _fuzzy,”_ said the jotunn with a friendly grin.

Thor sighed. That name wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

The jotunn prince gave a little tug of the chain and hopped out of his chair. The bell tinkled.

"Come on, _fuzzy,_ let’s go for a walk.”

 

 


	5. I said, heel! Not, hump!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor adjusts to life on Jotunheim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for [jabberwockary](http://jabberwockary.tumblr.com/) and [whimsikalmusing](http://whimsikalmusing.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. 
> 
> Because I really was going to slither into my cave and put the work blinkers on until 20th/Dec, but they were being all sweet and distract-y :D :D :D

 

 

 

Thor did not know Sif and Fandral were gone until three days after they had been sent across the Bifrost, bundled up in furs and bound to their _elgar_ like so much baggage.

 

No one had thought to tell him. It was not a deliberate cruelty, he gathered. It just did not occur to the Jotnar that he might worry about his people.

 

After being paraded about the household at the end of a leash, Thor had been, like so many exotic pets given carelessly as gifts, left sitting on a pile of silk cushions and ignored. Thor was not sure if _this_ was deliberate, either.

 

In the evening, the prince’s secretary Fenja unhooked the leash from the wall and tugged him out of the room, his feet numb from not moving for so long. He was led down a chill hallway into a tiled, heavily perfumed, and bitingly cold chamber where Fenja, pursing his lips, waved at a bowl with a richly carved mahogany cover.

 

“Make it quick.”

 

“Make _what_ quick?” demanded Thor. The secretary turned his head away disdainfully and deigned not to look at him.

 

“You. Asgard. _Defecate.”_

Thor stared at what turned out to be a toilet and back at the effete jotunn incredulously. He looked about the room, at the pipes and hoses and now sinister looking fixtures.

 

“You want me to empty my bowels,” said Thor slowly, “in front of you. _Why?”_

 

Did they mean to rape him? Was this prissy servant readying Thor for his own unmanning? Did they think he would _allow_ for this?

It was that inopportune moment that the unlucky Fenja flicked impatiently at the leash, and Thor grabbed it, yanking it back. Fenja lost his footing and stumbled into him, and Thor gripped him by the arm and shook him.

 

“Are you washing me out next?” snarled Thor. “Does that nasty little brat not want to smear his little dick in shit, is that it? If they sent you alone to hold me down, they must not like you very much, you little snake.”

 

In a futile attempt, Fenja shrieked and tried to struggle out of his grip, staring at him wide-eyed, his breath hitching. He was very slight and delicate, and Thor, awash in the anger of the moment pulled him closer and felt a shiver run down the jotunn’s spine. He tightened the hold on Fenja’s arm, slipping an arm around his narrow waist and held him flush against him. Fenja didn’t resist.

 

He was breathing hard, and his dark pupils were dilated. Thor realized, the anger receding from him like an ebb tide, that the jotunn was limp against him and pressing insistently into his groin.

 

Footsteps came pounding down the hallway and the door slammed open.

 

With one look at the scene, Iði yanked Fenja out of Thor’s hands and shoved him out first. He barked over his shoulder. “You. Asgard. Come on.”

 

Confused, Thor trudged after them, Fenja scurrying on ahead, stumbling over his own mincing steps before he reached the main chamber again, and fell in a heap atop a pile of cushions with a hysterical sob. Iði sighed and knelt down to rub his back in a soothing fashion, but that only upset Fenja the more, making him shiver and toss his head.

 

The door to an inner chamber opened, and Loki came out stomping his feet, looking annoyed.

 

“Iði, I’ve told you time and again, Fenja doesn’t _like_ you that way,” Loki snapped. “So stop _touching_ him. What’s the matter with him?” Loki peered into his secretary’s face. “Why’s he like this? Is he in estrus?”

 

Iði growled and jerked his head at Thor. “Ask _that_ one. _He’s_ the one that did it.”

 

“ _Him?_ That animal?” Loki made a face of revulsion. “Fenja, you stuck-up prude, were you craving Asgardian cock? You want _that_ to _touch_ you?!”

 

Fenja buried his face in his hands and whined piteously. Loki only railed at him some more. “I can’t believe you, Fenja! That’s disgusting! For all your refined airs, you want _fuzzy_ plowing in your cunt? He _smells!_ And he has all that filthy _animal hair!”_

 

Iði had gathered up Fenja and was rocking him in his lap. “You can’t help what you like,” he said gruffly. “What do you want to do, Fenja?”

 

Fenja only shook his head and tried to crawl out of Iði’s arms.

 

“There’s not much of a choice, is there?” said Loki, scathing. “You, _fuzzy_ , you’re responsible for this. Don’t stand there with your thumb in your mouth like an imbecile. Get on with it, then! You can use the second chamber. Don’t get spunk on the silk.”

 

“What do you _take_ me for?” shouted Thor and Fenja gave a horrified shriek and ran from the room. Iði just shook his head.

 

“What?” demanded Loki. “I have _work_ to do! I’ve already had to send Hlaði home for the season because of the added burden, and now even Fenja’s completely useless to me. What was he doing rubbing up against _fuzzy_ anyway?”

 

“Looking after him? You told him to.” Iði shrugged and glared balefully at a bewildered Thor, who snarled at both of them.

 

“I am _not_ your _dog_!” shouted Thor. “I do _not_ need your people to wipe my arse!”

 

“Oh?” sneered Loki. “Not my _dog_ are you? A dog would be of more use! What good are you? You can’t fend for yourself, you have no magic, you can’t feed yourself, you do no work, you get in the way, and you don’t know how things are done! And now you’ve humped my secretary into a mindless heat!”

 

“I didn’t _ask_ to be made a prisoner!”

 

Loki stomped his foot so hard, Thor and Iði both jumped back, as if the floor might break under him. It didn’t, though a rumble ran through the walls.

 

“You charged into the _treasury_ and tried to steal the _Casket_ , you hairy mindless _barbarian_!” shouted Loki. “What did you expect? A gift basket and a pony ride home? And now, Farbauti-king’s foisted you on _my_ hands, Býleistr’s spending money like icicles, and I’ve had to send my personal page away to feed your worthless mouths for a season! So what use are you except a drain on my household?”

 

“Then put us to use!” Thor shouted back. “We’ll be a burden to no one, least of all to you, you scrawny little pipsqueak!”

 

“Fine!” screamed Loki. And eyes bulging and furious, he scanned the room and pointed to an ornately carved armoir.

 

“Move that!” he ordered.

 

Thor stalked over to the armoir – it wasn’t made of mahogany as he’d thought. It was marble – and crouched down to lift it. “Where?” he grunted.

 

Loki pointed to the other side of the room. “There!”

 

It was heavy, but Thor hefted it in crab steps and put it down triumphantly. “Next?”

 

“That one,” ordered Loki, pointing at a low table, carved out of a giant block of jade, and Thor heaved it up and moved it into another chamber.

 

Thor was flushed with exertion, but he didn’t care. After days of sitting around like an idle eunuch, this had his blood pumping.

 

“At least make it a challenge for me,” he said with a laugh, and Loki jabbed his finger at yet another inordinately heavy piece, and Thor lifted it, beaming. This, he knew. This, he could do.

 

Shaking his head at their foolishness, Iði left the chambers.

 

The rooms were quickly becoming a maze of chaos, what with furniture haphazardly blocking up space.

 

When they cooled down, Loki not fuming with rage anymore and Thor neither, they realized they had to put everything back the way they were again. To Thor’s surprise, the youngest prince helped, lifting the other end of the settee and fussing about the correct angles.

 

“Býleistr’s a slob,” was all he said by way of explanation. Thor just nodded. He had had to share chambers with Balder when he was very young, and every week had ended in fights and a line drawn across the middle of the room. 

They worked, rather companionably alongside each other without saying more. The jotunn boy was stronger than he looked.

 

In the midst of their exertions, Thor noticed a strange jotunn entering the rooms, dropping to an elaborate low bow to Loki before disappearing into the inner chambers. Thor stared – even in the palace, this jotuun was especially beautiful and well-built, and dressed in a fine outer robe that shimmered in a pattern of silvery peacock eyes under the dark colors of the damask weave.

 

He didn’t ask, but Loki rolled his eyes at his questioning face.

 

“He’s a courtesan,” said Loki petulantly. “Remember? To work out Fenja’s _issues?_ Iði must have asked him to come take care of him.” He made a face at Thor. “So don’t worry, your virtue’s still intact. You don’t have to stick your precious cock into jotunn pussy.”

 

“I’m not averse to bedding jotunn,” said Thor, and added quickly before Loki could sneer at that. “Why not Iði himself? It’s clear he cares for that one, sourpuss as he is.”

 

“Oh, noticed that, have you?” said Loki, slumping down exhausted in an overstuffed armchair. He patted the edge of the cushion, motioning for Thor to approach and lean his head against it. Gritting his teeth, Thor ambled closer on his knees, but held his spine straight. He _wasn’t_ a dog.

 

“It wouldn’t do at all for Iði to tend to him, not now,” explained Loki, as if Thor was an imbecile. “Iði has _feelings_ for him, and Fenja doesn’t return them. At least not yet. It would be taking _horrible_ advantage in his current state. You could do it, because you egged him on. That would be following instinct. A courtesan is better. Fenja will be back to normal after a good bout of rutting. After all, it’s just sex,” said Loki casually.

 

“You’ve never lain with anybody, have you?” mocked Thor, and Loki slapped him so sharply that Thor almost sprained his neck.

 

“You’re uncouth, Asgard,” he said curling his lip, and then his face crumpled, suddenly horrified. “And you _smell!_ Why do you _smell_ so _?”_ Loki jumped to his feet and yanked Thor up by his hair. “You filthy, filthy beast. I’ll have to _wash_ you! Will there _ever_ be an end to my burdens?”

 

Hunched over as he was tugged along, Thor found himself in a vast bathing room. A servant came in to run the bath and remove his loincloth, and before Thor could protest, he was thrown into a tub of lukewarm water. Loki waved off the servant.

 

“I can wash my own dog,” he snapped, and proceeded to scrub a rough soap stone into Thor’s hair.

 

“I’m _not_ your dog,” protested Thor.

 

Without warning, Loki dunked Thor’s head underwater, and Thor swallowed water, and rose gasping and sputtering. Laughing, Loki flitted out of the way before Thor could pull him in with him, and reached over to furiously scrub Thor’s back, then slapped his shoulder to turn around, and scoured the soap stone over his chest.

 

For once, he looked like a boy, a happy one at that, lost in the moment, and Thor’s shoulders relaxed for the first time in days.

 

Water streaming down his face, Thor watched in silence as the boy prince’s hands slowed, working up a lather and running his fingers through the thick growth of chest hair. Thor remembered their first strained exchange in the cells underground.

 

The boy swallowed hard, his fingers timidly exploring Thor’s wet skin, and Thor felt like he was holding his breath, not wanting to ruin this fragile moment, lest it flip the boy’s temperamental whims for the worse.

 

“Why are you so furry, Asgard?” asked the young prince softly. “Does it keep you warm?”

 

Thor swam closer to the edge of the tub. The water wasn’t cold, but combined with the afternoon’s exertion, it worked to sooth his muscles as well as a steam bath would back home. Thor sighed, and put the thought of Asgard away for later when he would be alone.

 

“The cold doesn’t hurt me as much any more,” said Thor. “I couldn’t have adapted so quickly.”

 

Loki snorted, splashing water to wash away the suds. “No, that was all me, Arrogance. It’s magic. Don’t you have magic in Asgard?”

 

“It’s only for witches,” said Thor. “Weak women and _ergi._ ”

 

Loki laughed and splashed more water, this time on his face. “That’s why you remain _weak_ , Asgard. Duck.”

 

With a second’s notice, he pushed Thor’s head under water again. Thor held his breath, sank, and rose, this time to his full height, the water sloshing at mid thigh. The water darkened the hair at his groin and his cock lay quiescent and soft, like a soft, sleeping animal. The boy’s gaze looked everywhere but there, suddenly shy.

 

“And now your legs,” said the prince quietly, and ran the soap stone over the back of Thor’s thighs to the front. His fingers were slight and cool, and he brushed over the hairs with his fingertips, slowly making his way up.

 

“It’s not so golden now, your bush” said Loki almost to himself, biting his lip.

 

If he should touch him… Thor held his breath, his heartbeat beating wildly inside his head. He could feel the boy’s breath on his cock, and holding still, a jarring heat flooding through the pit of his stomach. If this child should put his fingers to his cock… nay, his mouth… Thor’s mind recoiled at the thought, and at the same time, his cock flooded with blood, excited at their closeness, the slender fingers on his buttocks, the ghost of an exhale tickling the hairs of his groin… and Thor’s own calloused fingers curled at the back of the young prince’s neck.

 

And suddenly the boy pulled back – was yanked back, by a glowering Iði, who shoved at Thor, and Thor almost slipped and lost his footing.

 

“Finish the rest on your own,” Iði growled, throwing the soapstone into the water. “And if you dare prattle about this to anyone—” he drew a finger across his throat.

 

And throwing an arm over the prince’s shoulders, Iði rushed him out of the bathing chamber.

 

Thor sat back on the curved ledge in the water, and desperately tried to regain his thoughts. What had he been _doing_. This was the enemy, his gaolers, and above all that, the mighty Thor did not lie with _children_. He buried his face in his hands, and if he sat there in the lukewarm water until it grew cold and webs of ice grew around his knees, he barely noticed.

 

The next day, word had spread throughout the court of the Asgardian’s _assets_ that had reduced the fastidious Fenja to such a desperate state, and the younger princes’ household was besieged with letters and generous gifts for the pleasure of his beguiling company.

 

Thor thought the prince would refuse them all in disgust.

 

But true to form, prince Loki decided it was high time Thor started earning his keep, and began issuing invitations to tea. 

 

 

 


	6. What's a Party without Party Favors?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor is like jotunn catnip.

 

 

“Do you mean to pimp me out?” demanded Thor.

 

From his writing desk, Loki weighed a pouch of cabochon-cut rubies in his palm, and they fell with a sound of rain through his fingers. “Isn’t this nice? What’s a night with a grizzled one-handed warlord when you can have rubies? The high lord Gangr wants you badly, _fuzzy._ I have no idea _why._ I hear he’s quite skilled at giving pleasure," said the precocious child, "even with one hand.”

 

“I am not your _whore!”_ growled Thor.

 

He was seated cross-legged at a low writing desk next to Loki’s higher one, sorting out the prince’s papers. Currently he was co-opted into fulfilling the secretary’s duties. Most of them were accounts, moneys to be paid to various parties, details of expenditures, a payroll, and letters.

 

There were no state secrets hidden in these. A farmer in Dainskar province was complaining that his neighbor was intruding on his grazing lands, with the border shifting after the last ice storm. Another insisted that his bull had impregnated his neighbor’s cows, and therefore half the calves, when born, should belong to him. The tedium went on and on. There was still another stack to go through before the evening’s festivities.

 

They had settled into an uneasy truce after Fenja had gone into heat and they had yelled at each other and moved heavy furniture, though Loki seemed to have taken to Thor as his exotic new boarhound, absently running his bony fingers through Thor’s hair when he was thinking something through.

 

Volstagg had ingratiated himself with the cooking staff, and Hogun was working in the stables. They did not seem mistreated. Though today, both were recruited to help out with preparations for the party. Thor caught glimpses of them through the open doorways.

 

“I thought you swore your allegiance to me, _fuzzy_ ,” Loki was saying, narrowing his eyes at him. “Where’s your obedience now?”

 

“I swore fealty as your household. Do you mean to make a harlot of me against my will?”

 

“No one’s forcing you to do anything, idiot!” snapped Loki. “Fine, hold on to your precious virginity! See what good it does you!” And he flounced off to his chambers to throw all his best clothes all over his bed.

 

“I am _not_ a virgin!” Thor shouted at his back, and scowling, went back to settling the accounts.

 

Fenja had taken to his bed, and was milking his condition for another day. Iði was downstairs in the mezzanine, directing the servants with setting out the cushions and chaises and draping tapestries over the many private nooks. Later he came by with two bowls, and handed one of them to Thor. Thor sniffed at it suspiciously. Iði had been furious after catching him in the bath. The food didn't _smell_ poisoned.  Iði snorted, switched and gave Thor his own instead.

 

“I’d put it on the floor,” said Iði, pulling a spoon out of his pocket, “but that would be a cheap joke.”

 

Thor grunted and dug into the mush. It wasn’t horrible, a simple mash of lentils and root vegetables. There was even a faint hint of spice. Thor scraped the sides of the bowl clean.

 

“How is your friend?” he asked, and Iði grunted.

 

“Fine,” he said curtly, then sighed. “Fine, better than fine. His pride’s hurt more than anything. Peiðra’s very good at what he does. I’ve had him before.”

 

“Is that what that little –” _toerag_ was not going to go over well. And of all the Jotnar here, he held a smidgen of respect for Iði. “ – _prince_ ,” Thor gritted out, “means for me to do. Service your court in _bed_?”

 

Iði looked surprised. “You wish to put your cock to _service_ , Asgard? Are you planning on overrunning the palace with your fuzzy little half-breed kittens? Is that how you will lead an invasion into Jotunheim? From the _boudoir_?”

 

Thor flushed, but Iði slapped his thighs with a booming guffaw. “No worries, Asgard. That was merely a jest. We don’t rape nuns. Except on name-days. No, I’m joking, joking.”

 

“I am _not_ a _nun_ ,” said Thor heatedly. “Why does everyone _think_ that?” but Loki had entered the main chambers and clapped his hands.

 

“It’s almost time. Pretty him up, Iði,” he said, then his mouth twisted in a sneer. “I mean, as much as can be done with _that_. We want him to look… _nice_ for his suitors.”

 

Thor gawped, but Iði got to his feet and ignoring Thor’s protests, wiped his mouth and started combing out his hair with what looked like a horse currying brush.

 

“Hold still, Asgard,” said Iði, who insisted on combing out every single hair, including the ones on his chest and legs, as well as Thor’s eyebrows and lashes. Iði didn’t seem to notice there was a difference.

 

Finally, leaving Thor with half a dozen thin braids amongst his free-flowing locks, he settled the ends curling over his shoulders, and patted Thor on the back again.

 

“Don’t worry, princess,” said Iði with a friendly grin. “You needn’t spread your legs in front of company. It’s not _that_ kind of party.”

 

But as the evening went on, Thor wasn’t so sure of that.

 

The gawking was free and roving, as was the wine that soon replaced the fragrant tea, as the select guests wandered over to stare at Thor, and marvel at his blanched, whey-colored skin, the glint of bright metal of his hair.

 

“Like the finest of dwarven wires,” said one elegant scholar, lifting a lock of hair and smelling it. “Why does he smell of lavender? Is that natural?”

 

Thor had been made to sit on a flat embroidered cushion next to where Loki’s low chair was placed, and he clenched and unclenched his fists as the Jotnar peered at him curiously, fascinated, repulsed, disgusted, and perversely attracted. Thor was sure he was going to end the evening on the table on his back, with a jotunn fucking him into the dessert.

 

One young warrior pulled his chair closer to Thor and reached over to pinch his nipples. Thor snarled at him. The jotunn jumped back startled.

 

Loki glanced over his shoulder and said, in a bored voice. “Careful. The dog bites,” before turning back to his own conversation. The jotunn looked even more intrigued, and sidled closer. He slipped a gold bracelet, heavily studded with amethysts onto Thor’s wrist.

 

“A token of my appreciation. My name is Þiazi,” he whispered in Thor’s ear, and slid a hand under the loincloth and palmed Thor’s cock. Thor jumped in surprise. “I wish to hear it on your lips, Asgard, as you beg for more.”

 

A sharp clearing of throat released him. Loki turned around again, this time shifting in his seat to look disdainfully down his nose at the other jotunn.

 

“He’s not going to take the first offer of the evening, Þiazi,” said Loki, “Give the others a chance to check his teeth.”

 

Þiazi only smiled wider and caressed Thor’s bare calf. “He wants the best for you, what a generous prince.” And licking a possessive stripe up Thor’s jaw, he left to fill his goblet.

 

Loki shook his head, and leaned in to whisper at Thor.

 

“You idiot. Look at you, slack-jawed to suck the first cock dangled in front of your face, and just for a pretty trinket. Keep your dumb mouth shut, _fuzzy_ , and you’ll be wearing a fortune riding up to your armpits before the night’s over.”

 

Thor hissed at him. “You said you wouldn’t pimp me out!”

 

“I am _not_ pimping you out!” Loki whispered back, annoyed. “I thought you’d like some company!”

 

“Is _that_ what this is? Company?” He gestured at the party at large. There were sounds of loud and vigorous fucking coming from behind a gossamer veil. The bracelet jangled on his wrist.

 

“They wanted to see you, is all,” said Loki, tapping the heavy gold. “And look, free _gold_. Try to behave, you thankless _animal.”_ Then, brightening at the sight of someone, Loki rose from the chair, and pressed his finger between Thor’s brows, rubbing out the furrowed worry line playfully. “If you don’t make that ugly scowly face at the guests, you might have some fun. Make a friend or two.”

 

And Loki was soon lost in the throng. Left alone, another jotunn sat down to sniff at Thor’s neck as if meaning to open the vein and drink deep. The next one plied him with wine while pinching his nipples into pebbles, and strung a chain of fiery opals around his neck. Others rubbed his shoulders, his calves, ran their fingers through his hair, his chest. His skin ached from their wandering touches.

 

His arms were heavy with gold, as Loki had said they would be, the jewels gleaming molten in the low ambient light, and he felt tired and queasy without having had to fuck anyone. Thor evaded another jotunn who offered to suck his cock, hands grazing over his skin as he passed, and found a dark nook to rest his spinning head for a minute.

 

 

He awoke with a start, blue shadows dancing in the dark. The party had died down to a murmur. Thor arose from the nook at the sound of voices nearby.

 

One of the great double doors was ajar. The smaller figure was blocking the entrance, or inviting the other in, it wasn’t clear. The other loomed over him, in no hurry to enter, but not looking to leave either, content to linger at doorways and exchange tender words.

 

Thor was familiar with that posture, when it was more pleasant to pause in the pursuit and look upon the lovely, clever maid, feel puffed up in the gentle flattery of her desire for him. Thor was no callow youth, desperate for any quick release where it could be had. He had enjoyed clever banter as much as a satisfying tumble in the sheets.

 

He had not considered that the maid might be pained for wanting _him_. Women fled, men pursued, was that not the nature of things?

 

But that was no pretty maid. It was that nasty, vicious, _avaricious,_ no-good –

 

The very shadows had turned caressing and intimate, and the murmured words were not meant for him to overhear. Thor ducked back, careful not to be seen, but there was no way he could leave without making his presence known. He was trapped here, unnoticed as furniture, while two Jotnar rubbed their tentacles, or some such filth.

 

“Your breath tickles, lord Thrym, and I can taste the wine in the air,” the little prince was saying. “I am drunk on your words.”

 

“And from the excellent wine, no doubt,” the lord said with a rumble of a laugh. “Come closer then, let us see if your breath will intoxicate me.”

 

The little prince pressed a finger at the warlord’s chest and whispered. “You’ll lose your head, lord Thrym, and I shall take wicked advantage of you.”

 

“And show me no mercy, I hope,” said Thrym fondly, swaying with drink and tenderness. “If only you would, and I could taste your sweetness. If only our time was allowed. But now….”

 

“What’s stopping you? Are there Asgardians blocking my door?” mocked Loki.

 

“Will that stop me from my heart’s desire?”

 

“You’ll kill them all to sate your blood lust,” said Loki. “Is that the only lust that stirs you? What a cold marriage bed you offer my poor brother. How he must twist the lonely sheets with frustration when you gallop off to cut the heads off barbarians.”

 

“And yet that is the promise to which I’m bound,” said Thrym with a deep velvety smile.

 

“He will take lovers, you know, when you are away. How pretty your family will be, each fat drooling brat sired by one of your slaves,” said Loki with a laugh. “Will you be able to tell the difference?”

 

“You are cruel, little prince, as cruel as you are lovely to tease the way you do,” said Thrym, reaching for the little finger, and guiding it to draw patterns upon his bare chest. “The stars frown down upon us, and you sharpen my torment,” he said, not sounding very tormented, and leaning closer to smell the young prince’s neck, his ears, his rough fingers brushing over the grooves on the thin twisted horns, “your loveliness growing by the day, and your intoxicating scent, as I long for you, never allowed to touch –”

 

“But you _are._ You _are_ allowed. You may do whatever you wish with me, I am _yours_ ,” pleaded the boy guilelessly, breaking the game, earnest and desperate, and Thor cringed, wishing he was anywhere but here.

 

An inadvertent growl escaped his throat, and the pair jumped apart, the spell broken.

 

Even in the dark, the warlord’s sharp eyes found him first, and Thor refused to shrink back into the shadows.

 

“Your wild dog has turned faithful, my prince,” said Thrym, staring down at Thor with a challenging smile. “He’s waited up for you. Perhaps it is time for bed.”

 

And he swung the young prince up in his arms and strode across the room. Thor followed them at a distance. The warlord was laying the boy down on his bed, and Loki reached up, whimpering, to keep his fingers clasped around Thrym’s neck, but gently Thrym unloosed them. Loki’s eyes were wide with unshed tears, and Thrym paused, and dropped an avuncular kiss on the top of his head, and turned away as if ashamed.

 

He stopped to spare a glance at Thor. “Take good care of your master, Asgardian _cur_ ,” he said, and left.

 

The silence in the room was like being thrust into a vacuum, and the low thud as the door closed was deafening. The boy had turned over on his side to bury his face in the pillows, and with a sigh of relief and a wavering of… _pity_ Thor shook his head and stepped quietly out of the room.

 

He was startled to hear a sudden, joyful little laugh that came from the bed.

 

“Stay with me, _fuzzy_. Come here,” said Loki, patting the space beside him, and without thinking, Thor’s knee hit the bed and he found himself tucked into the boy’s side, cold soothing fingers running through his hair.

 

“Did you have a good time, _fuzzy?”_ asked the boy, and Thor only sighed through his nose. Loki didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer. If not for his fingers, he seemed to have forgotten that Thor was next to him, that he _wasn’t_ some dumb animal lying next to his master.

 

“He loves me,” Loki was saying into the darkness, a secretive little smile curling at the corner of his lips. “He can’t say it, but he loves me. I’m sure of it now. Oh, _fuzzy_ , isn’t life _wonderful?_ ”

 

He rolled to his side and hugged Thor’s head to his chest in fierce glee.

 

The poor child was drunk. Worse than that, _he_ was the one in love.

 

Thor sighed deeply. This would only end in more tears.

 

Soon, he felt the arms slack as the boy drifted off to sleep, and carefully, Thor tucked him under the blankets and listened to his whistling breath.

 

Thor lay back, his hands behind his head, staring up at the pattern of elaborate scrolling on the ceiling, and brought to mind the golden vision of Asgard, the way the sun would slant through the trees in Idunn’s orchard, how the warm glow flowed over from the stark sweeping eaves of Odin’s halls to the crofter’s humble cottage, and Thor smiled to himself as he remembered the lass with curly brown hair and soft bosoms who been the first to tumble with him.

 

But he couldn’t for the life of him remember the color of her eyes or even her name, and shortly afterwards, Thor fell asleep, too.

 

 

 

 


	7. Whining and Nagging

 

 

 

It began at dreadful and went downhill from there.

 

Thor awoke rutting into a fur coverlet.

 

As the recollection as to how he had ended up in this particular bed slowly came back to him in pieces, Thor grew considerably less annoyed at the barrier for obstructing his early morning pleasure. He was oscillating between relieved and horrified as consciousness broke upon him, unwelcome as the sun peeking in through the drapes after a night of carousing. The arms and legs currently wrapped around him did not, as he had first groggily surmised, belong to an overgrown spider-monkey, but to the youngest prince of Jotunheim, he of the indeterminate physical maturity and the vindictive family and friends.

 

“Býleistr, stop  _poking_  at me,” mumbled the boy, and Thor succeeded in untangling the  legs and putting some distance between their nether parts when the door slammed open and the brother in question came running in.

 

“Loki! Loki! You’ll never guess who father’s selected for your –  _oh….”_

 

Býleistr stopped in his tracks and stared, almost causing the one chasing after him to collide into his back. This one was fully grown, broad shouldered with plain, honest features of the square-jawed Balder type, though that sort of assessment came later. At the moment there was much gawking and mouths dropping open and closing without a sound like so many dumb fish.

 

Thor quickly grabbed for the furs and dropped them over his lap to hide his state, as Loki stirred sleepily, then sat up in bed wide awake.

 

He stared from Thor to his brothers in shock, and before Thor could say anything, rough hands yanked Thor halfway across the bed by the hair.

 

Thor swung out, instinct hitting out at whomever had grabbed him and knocking him to the ground. The jotunn stared up at him, rubbing his jaw, before remembering to lunge for Thor again. Later Thor noted that about Helblindi, who seemed the opposite of his brothers, so placid that the had to feign violence when the situation seemed to demand it.

 

“No, wait,” Loki said quickly, planting one hand on Thor’s chest and putting himself between the two, “he didn’t do anything –”

 

“Are you sleeping with animals, now?” inquired Býleistr, and Loki whirled on him.

 

“I was just  _sleeping._ I’m not sleeping  _with_  him,” he snapped. “I’m not  _anything_ with  _anyone –”_

 

“Not yet, but soon,” Býleistr blurted out, remembering his mission. “Father wants to speak to you, but I already know –”

 

“Is it Thrym?” Loki asked eagerly, and bit his tongue too late.

 

“No! Why should it be Thrym?” demanded Býleistr, then stomped his feet. “It will never be Thrym! Don’t you go near him! He’s  _mine._ ”

 

“You’re such a child, Býleistr,” said Loki peevishly. He’d inadvertently leaned back into Thor, as if he were a grotto from which Loki could sulk. “Grow up. If you were truly mature, you wouldn’t be so  _grabby_.”

 

Býleistr almost squawked at that. “ _I’m_ grabby? You take  _everything,_ you have to be the center of attention  _all_ the _time_  –”

 

“Boys, boys!” Helblindi put his hand on Býleistr, who shook him off impatiently.

 

“I’ll tell everyone you give yourself to  _animals_  before you’re even ready!” Býleistr hissed at his brother. “I’ll tell them – I’ll tell them –!” He shook his head, stumped for terrible ideas.

 

“Nobody will believe you, you pervert!” snarled Loki. “They’ll just think you’re hungry to suck donkey dick! Who do you think they’ll be talking about, then?  _I’ll_  say you eat afterbirth, and give birth to trolls, and that you throw your ugly, malformed get into the Northern Sea to feed sea dragons.”

 

“You wouldn’t --!” wailed Býleistr, aghast. “Who’d believe  _that?”_

 

“I don’t need them to  _believe_  it,” said Loki. “I’ll make up one horrific story after another, and people will repeat them because they’re all so deliciously awful. Wouldn’t that be fun? The adventures of Býleistr, prince of filth? Thrym wouldn’t touch you with ten-foot spear.”

 

Býleistr gaped at him. “Why must you take  _everything?_ Why does it  _always_  have to be about  _you?”_

 

“I wasn’t the one who stole  _first,”_ said Loki. “You knew I wanted –”

 

But his brother had already run from the room. Helblindi was looking ruefully after him, as if he thought he should run after him, but at that moment, Loki let out a furious sigh, and Helblindi turned to him instead.

 

“That didn’t go too well,” said Helblindi, still rubbing his face. “Don’t worry about it. He won’t ruin your big day. But you really shouldn’t –” he gestured vaguely at Thor. “People might get the wrong idea.”

 

“Shut up, Helblindi, it isn’t like that,” said Loki, kicking off the blankets. “And even if it were, I’ll do as I please. You did exactly as  _you_ pleased with the one  _you_ chose.”

 

“Yes, how father reminds me of what a disappointment I am every day that I live,” said Helblindi, not sounding very regretful for causing such parental distress.

 

“You have your Gerd. Why can’t I have lord Thrym? Why does Býleistr have to be so  _selfish?_ ”

 

Helblindi sat down on the bed, then inched away with a cagey look in Thor’s direction.

 

“Lord Thrym is not like Gerd,” said Helblindi with a sigh. “He’s not for the  _having._  He is canny and he is powerful, and we ought to be relieved that he is appeased with marrying Býleistr, and not you. More likely he would slurp the flesh off you alive and use your bones to pick his teeth, Loki.”

 

“Maybe I  _want_ him to!” cried Loki shamelessly. “Maybe I  _want_ him to use me! Why should father toss him dull, plodding Býleistr, when  _I_ would suit him better? He knows Býleistr’s too  _stupid_  to be king, and you don’t want to be. I thought Laufey  _loved_ me! He said I was the best! The cleverest! He said I was meant for the throne! Liar! He’s never thought me good enough because I’m not of his flesh!”

 

“Loki, child,  _no_ ,” said Helblindi. “It’s not like that. But you can’t rush headlong into such serious matters wearing your passions on your sleeve. Stop and  _think.”_

 

But Loki had already leapt off the bed and was furiously tossing his things about the room before his murderous gaze landed on Thor. His eyes narrowed, as he measured him up.

 

“You really shouldn’t wear all your gaudy finery all at once,  _fuzzy_ ,” said Loki. “It makes you look cheap.” He started plucking the trinkets off Thor, not minding that the clasps and chains snagged at the fine hairs and yanked them out. Thor caught his wrist.

 

“Calm down,” he growled. “You look mad. And this wasn’t  _my_  idea, having every jotunn come by to hang a shiny bauble on me as if I were a bride sitting under a veil.”

 

Thor shook the heavy gold ornaments so that they jangled on his arms. Helblindi looked startled, as if he had not thought Thor could speak. But Loki only patted him on the head.

 

“No, it was mine,” said Loki. “You leave all the thinking and planning to me. I’m good at ideas.”

 

Thor groaned, and looked up at the sound of matching exasperation from across the bed.

 

“Whatever you’re thinking, Loki,” warned his brother. “Don’t.”

 

Loki gave him an innocent smile. “I just feel like some breakfast. Aren’t you hungry,  _fuzzy?_  I think we should eat with the whole family today.”

 

§

 

White light streamed through the domed glass of the skylight into the length of the king’s hall. Breakfast was a casual affair, low round tables of various sizes laid out before parties of two or three but never more than six. Provincial lords sat with minor princes four times removed from the line, and visiting dignitaries broke bread with poets and popular swordsmen.

 

Today the Laufey-king was sipping a bowl of clear broth with the witch of the Ironwood, whose rare dark hair was caught with shells and coral like a long tangled net. The jotunn Angrboða was rumored to have Vanir blood running through his veins, although whether that was through ancestry or from diet it was unclear. What  _was_  apparent was that the witch was a great beauty who smiled too freely and too often at the king, and that Farbauti was not present. But then, Farbauti rarely came down to breakfast with the full court.

 

A hush descended over the hall just as the witch burst into a peal of laughter, and the grim old warriors looked over and scowled. But the rest of the court was staring at the arched doorway, as Loki made his entrance with his pet on a leash, and picked his way through the various islets of influence. Loki had plucked off all the heavy gold from Thor’s arms and neck before they had come down, leaving only an amulet carved out of bone wound around Thor’s ankle with a simple leather cord, and Thor felt the sharp eyes roaming over him to ferret out which token had been chosen. If it was a message, Thor could not decipher it.

 

At the dais, Loki made a small bow to Laufey before he knelt on the floor cushions, and motioned for Thor to do the same. A servant set a small table before them, the shape of an eight-petaled flower. From their position, Thor could see Býleistr with their tutor some ways off glowering at Loki darkly, whom Loki blithely ignored, as he very pointedly did the same to lord Thrym who sat across the room with his captains, watching.

 

“What are you playing at?” hissed Thor, but Loki was concentrating on pouring out cups of fragrant tea, and set one before Thor.

 

“You do know how to use a cup,  _fuzzy?_  I won’t have to pour it into your saucer so you can lap at it like a dog?”

 

Thor snarled at him, but Loki only laughed quietly and stroked Thor’s beard. A jotunn lord was making his way to their table. Thor remembered him from the night before – he’d been the one with the opals.

 

“Peel me a grape,” Loki whispered quickly.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re not deaf,  _fuzzy_. Peel a damned grape,” said Loki, under his breath. “And it’s for me, not you. You understand that part, don’t you?”

 

Annoyed, Thor scowled but plucked a red grape off a small bowl and ended up dropping the slippery fruit into his lap. Loki fumed impatiently.

 

“Just feed it to me already,” he hissed, and before he could nag further, Thor popped a grape in his mouth. The young prince, about to snap at him, bit into the fruit instead, and a line of juice trickled down his chin.

 

Without thinking, Thor wiped it away with his thumb. “There, now that’s just going to get sticky. You want me to lick it off for you, too,  _sweetheart_?”

 

Quick as a snake, Loki moved to viciously pluck hairs from Thor’s thigh, just as the jotunn lord took the seat before them, and Loki dropped his hand to stroke him instead with false fondness. His hand stayed there as they exchanged pleasantries, and the lord openly ogled Thor.

 

As one by one, Thor’s strange admirers dropped by to trade nonsense with Loki, the boy’s pawing grew bolder. He didn’t pause in touching Thor, playing with his hair, running his fingers down his arm, through the short golden hairs of his thigh and rubbing small circles over the flat of his stomach. From anyone else he would have felt uncomfortable or aroused. But clearly, the boy was using him as a prop. He might as well have been an old boot. Thor was growing increasingly annoyed.

 

“What are you doing?” Thor asked in a rough whisper, as another jotunn, that brute Þiazi this time, left their table casting an unctuous smile at both of them. “Are you trying to make your grizzled old general jealous? A swineherd would blush at your lack of subtlety.”

 

“And how would you know?” Loki hissed back. “Anyway, some people need a clear reminder that I’m not a child any more.”

 

“So you decide to feel up your prisoner at breakfast?” scoffed Thor. “Wonderful plan. What’s next? You’ll fuck me over the tea trolley?”

 

“No, but it wouldn’t hurt to make father think that I might,” said Loki. He traced the leather cord wound around Thor’s ankle with a finger. “He should know that there are worse choices than giving me what I want. Besides, I like having what everyone  _else_  wants. Can you feel how you’ve riled them up?” Loki shivered in delight. “The air’s full of sparks.”

 

“How  _you’ve_  riled them up, you mean,” said Thor. “And when they’ve tired of your infernal teasing?”

 

Loki gave a careless shrug. “Then you can do your part and get fucked over the tea trolley,  _fuzzy_. Smile, we have company.”

 

As the murmurs rose and fell around them, Loki held onto his small smile and light banter, even as the lord Thrym finally left the hall with his cadre of warriors without stopping to speak to him. For all his feigned nonchalance, the boy’s shoulders seemed to droop when the warlord exited the hall, and a certain spark left his performance.

 

What it did invite was the attention of a higher order, when Laufey beckoned his youngest son to join him.

 

The witch of the Ironwood was watching from behind the curtain of his dark hair, and Thor felt a prickling on his skin as Laufey smiled at him.

 

“So this is the Asgardian who’s caused such a stir amongst our fine court,” said Laufey, holding out his hand to his son. Loki placed two fingers on his palm and the king stroked them gently. “Odin should be so proud. What a striking specimen this is,” said Laufey. “Are you fond of him, my child?”

 

The witch had black eyes instead of crimson, and they were dancing as they watched the boy grasp wildly for an answer. Lies that fell so easily from his tongue dried up in the presence of his father. Or perhaps it was Angrboða who frightened him to truth and silence.

 

“Many others seem to find him lovely as you do,” Laufey continued, in his slow, amused voice. “Perhaps it would be wiser if you made scarce your presence, should you incite a riot? Remain within doors until we have sent for you, Loki-child. It will not be too long. As for this other matter….” The king sighed, but the smile remained at the corners of his mouth. Jotunn smiles, Thor thought, were a nasty business. Laufey leaned forward, trapping his son’s small hand between his.

 

“What is a parent’s nagging to the wish of your dear young heart? If you desire to be deflowered by your Asgardian brute, who am I to say nay? It is of no consequence, my child. Amuse yourself as you please.”

 

 

 


	8. You're Grounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay you guys, there are tags for dub-con, non-con, violence, _and_ underage on this fic. Look up, check the tag warnings. Much wrongness shall ensue, here and in the following chapters and not stop.

 

 

 

The prison was more lavish this time, but it was still a prison. The doors to the youngest prince’s chambers were barred, though morning and evening Fenja came in with a tray for both of them.

 

“What is it, Fenja?” demanded Loki, clutching Fenja by the arm. Thor lifted the tray over their heads before it spilled. Loki went on, heedless, “Am I in disgrace? Is father very angry? Did Býleistr go tattling to father? What is happening? What did he _say?_ What are they _all_ saying? _”_

 

But Fenja quickly scurried out before Loki could shake any news out of him.

 

At first Loki paced, back and forth across the wide antechamber until he tired himself out. Then he flopped down on the divan and brooded. And he whined.

 

Loki complained of feeling too cold, then in the same hour, of being too hot, and then, got up again to resume his restless pacing in and out of the all the chambers of his suite. He had taken to wearing a quilted surcoat and made exaggerated motions of shivering, as he bumped into doorways and hard corners of furniture, all spindly legs and bony knees with all the grace of a newborn colt.

 

Thor opted for ignoring him. He didn’t think he would ever miss the finicky secretary, but Thor would have welcomed a lame ox and a badger with mouth rot if it meant not being alone with this moody child. 

 

“How can you _eat_ at a time like this?” Loki demanded. Thor just shrugged, picking through the bread basket instead. Why was jotunn bread _green?_ It smelled strongly of kelp, and it turned his stomach. Still, food was food. Thor nibbled at a star-shaped roll.

 

“And what time is this?” asked Thor, spreading a sharp pungent blue jam. He poured himself a goblet of fizzy boysenberry juice from the crystal decanter and wished it was something stronger.

 

“My time of _crisis!”_ cried Loki. “The stars are hurtling into motion, father has something terrible planned, the whole palace is scheming, my idiot brother is snatching up _all_ the prizes and laurels _again,_ and for what? His excellent skills at being _born_ a few seasons sooner than me? And I’m stuck here, locked up in the dark! With _you!_ At this rate, father will ship me off to some dingy hovel in the wastelands to rule over a herd of mangy _elgar._ Because he thinks I’m _worthless!”_

 

Thor sniffed at the jam and took a huge bite. “My heart _bleeds_ for you,” he muttered. “Now, calm down and eat your greens. You’re rather stunted for a giant’s get, did you know that?”

 

The boy let out a strangled noise, lobbed a kelp roll at his head, and flounced off.

 

That child needed a good _spanking,_ and they wouldn’t have to look very far for a volunteer.

 

For the rest of the afternoon, Thor sat rifling through the prince’s papers until his eyes were swimming with text. Then, he stretched and did five sets of calisthenics imagining an invisible foe until he was dripping with sweat, stood on his head, tried to read a jotunn saga – it was dreary and full of descriptions of ice and loneliness – and fell asleep sweating onto a silk divan.

 

He awoke with a crick in his neck and the beginnings of an annoying headache, and Loki casting a supercilious look down at him.

 

“You _smell_ ,” he told Thor, before storming off again. He didn’t say another word for the rest of the evening.

 

The next day, it was much of the same, with a nervous Fenja quickly leaving them a tray of food before he fled. Loki barely spared his secretary a second glance, that day or the next.

 

A sullen silence had taken over the boy, and if Thor found his barbs unpleasant, what was roiling inside unspoken felt worse. He sat at his desk eyeing Thor as if he were a poisoned piece of meat, his murderous crimson eyes following his every movement as if Thor was wasting air and Loki could barely tolerate his existence.

 

Thor wasn’t a _pet_ seeking approval – and confinement was due course. He was a prisoner here after all. But the sudden switch from acceptance and perhaps even fondness to utter loathing flamed a corresponding ire in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t as if Thor had _asked_ for this.

 

It was late in the afternoon when the storm finally burst.

 

“What did you tell that farmer with the randy bull, _fuzzy?”_

 

Thor looked up. The jotunn prince was fiddling through the mass of gold trinkets Thor had acquired at that accursed ‘party’ and making a list of what had come from whom. He fingered a heavy chain like a string of prayer beads in a play at patience. “The one who wanted half the calves from his neighbor’s herd once they’d dropped?”

 

A hazy recollection came back to him, and Thor chuckled in spite of himself. He had thought his solution rather clever. In any case, it was a ridiculous situation.

 

“Well?” the boy asked sharply.

 

“I said, fine, that sounded reasonable,” answered Thor, lightly, “but only if he’d let his neighbor fuck his wife, then take the child as his own once she’d given birth to it. She, he, however you jotunns parse it.”

 

“You _didn’t_.” Loki’s eyes were hard and glittering like a magpie’s before gold. “What about the child, then?”

 

“What about it?” countered Thor. “The bull farmer names the child his heir and gives it a hefty chunk of his property. Namely, the misbegotten herd he’s claimed from his neighbor.”

 

“You’re an idiot,” snapped Loki, shaking out his wide sleeve. “No wonder Fenja was flapping about like a trout on a skillet.”

 

“Serves him right for having a fainting fit and taking to his bed,” said Thor. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”

 

“Do you have _any_ idea how that makes me look?”

 

Without warning, Loki threw a heavy pendant at Thor’s head. He missed. Thor felt a sting on his arm, and his fingers came away with blood. Rage flared up, quick as a brush fire, and he didn’t bother to dampen it this time. The boy had been raring for a fight, and Thor wouldn't mind obliging him.

 

“Can you even imagine what they’ll say about me?” Loki got up from behind his desk and slowly stalked towards Thor. “How coarse and unnatural I am? Do you never _think?”_

 

“I’m not meant to be your secretary,” growled Thor. “As for your precious _thinking_ , that’s what got us locked up in here in the first place. Do you _think_ they’ll let us out when I give you a good ravishing?”

 

Loki slapped him hard across the face. Thor leapt to his feet to stare him down, and found he didn’t have to look very far.

 

When had the child grown so much?

 

To his surprise, the boy’s head easily rose past Thor’s shoulders, his angry breath sweeping across Thor’s collarbones like a squall across the tundra. He was trembling with anger, and Thor caught his wrist before he struck again.

 

“You think you’re so desirable?” sneered the boy, struggling to twist free. “It’s only your filthy _animal_ smell that’s driving the addle-pated mob into a frenzy. A novelty, that’s all. You’re nothing special. Maybe I should grind you into an oozy paste and sell you in tiny glass bottles. I’d make a fortune from your stink.”

 

“Why this avid obsession with gold?” mocked Thor. “One would think you had dwarf’s blood running through your veins for all your avarice. It would certainly explain your size –”

 

The kick to the shin caught him off guard, and Thor fell to one knee. Gaining the advantage, Loki shoved him, and was the one who had to take a step backwards against Thor’s solid bulk.

 

“You’re not even the _least_ bit grateful!” hissed Loki. “After all I’ve done for you!”

 

“Oh ho, grateful for not being murdered?” roared Thor. “Grateful to you for parading me in front of a court full of bawds and made to suffer their lecherous pawing? I am a _prince,_ not some inky fingered scribe! And I am certainly not your painted _whore!_ ”

 

“What do you want then?” demanded Loki. “To jump into the courtyard and brawl with the guards until they’ve beaten you into a pulp?”

 

“I am a _man!_ A warrior and a prince! I cannot be cooped up in a perfumed tent and tied down with pearls!” shouted Thor, shaking a lock of hair which, indeed, Loki had combed out and braided with baroque pearls. “I sit at my father’s council and lead the king’s army into battle!”

 

“Well, maybe your king doesn’t want you any more!” Loki was trembling even harder now, hugging the forearms of his surcoat. “Maybe you’re not the prince he wanted and he’s glad to be rid of you,” sneered Loki. “Maybe you’ve led your mad little troupe on one foolhardy raid too many, and he’s found this the perfect opportunity to wash his hands of you. Why else would he leave you to rot in the bosom of his enemies?”

 

“You’ve pressed him for an unreasonable ransom, you greedy puppy,” said Thor. “My father’s no fool. He won’t run to tilt his coffers into yours just because you run through gold like water.”

 

“I haven’t asked for _anything!”_ screamed Loki, and breathing hard, he fought to regain his composure. “I _didn’t_.”

 

Thor glared back, repeating to himself that this was a boy, barely a youth, and he was the mighty Thor; he didn’t embroil himself in quarrels with children.

 

Then Loki’s tightly pressed lips curved into a small smile, one that eliminated any doubt that this was Laufey’s child.

 

“Did you know, _Thor_ , there hasn’t been a single letter negotiating your release from Odin Allfather? Tell me something, oh _prince_ and _warrior_. Do you have brothers?”

 

“Two,” Thor bit out. “Half brothers. Tyr and Baldur.”

 

“There you have it,” said Loki, the smile wide and stretched thin now. “Why should he give up a proper king’s ransom when he has a spare and a contingency plan to boot? Are they _better_ than you? More obedient? More clever? It isn’t as if he doesn’t know you’re here. I’ve sent two of your little friends back to tattle about your sad fate. _Their_ families wanted them back. Perhaps you’ve found your place, sitting at my feet like a not-so-bright dog. It’s probably all you were ever meant for –”

 

Tyr had always told him his temper would be the death of him one day. What Tyr had probably meant was that he’d end up killing someone in a rage, which was worse.

 

Thor wasn’t thinking about that when he threw himself at the jotunn prince, wasn’t thinking of anything but the red hot rage that clouded his vision as they fell onto the white bearskin, grappling for dominance.

 

The boy fought back savagely, kicking and biting, fury pitted against Thor’s superior bulk. His long, claw-like nails raked scores into Thor’s arms and shoulders, and he had no compunctions about kneeing a man in his sensitive parts, the honorless cur – Thor barely had time to cross his legs and roll them over, backhanding the boy across the face before he pinned him down.

 

For all his sudden height, he was bony, skin stretched thin over his wrists, and Thor was suddenly aware of how slight this waif-child was despite his sinewy strength, how tired out he must be from growing too fast.

 

And as Thor looked down at the darkening bruise on the boy’s cheek, he remembered something else Tyr had said when Thor had run to him with horror stories he’d heard about the viciousness of jotunn warriors. How they raped their fallen foes on the battle field. What Tyr had said about the jotunn way, how fucking was wired instinctively into fighting, and how their ancient line of kings chose their mates.

 

All that flashed through his head, as he stared down at the boy, their shallow breaths mingling between them, and Thor was made acutely aware of how the dark slit of the boy’s pupils were blown wide as a dark star, edging out the crimson, and one leg dropped open to the side to receive him. How the somber, elegant folds of the loincloth now seemed obscenely revealing over the boy’s too slender limbs, drawing Thor’s gaze to the painfully jutting lines of his pelvis and how his hips jerked up involuntarily, caught up in the wave of instinct.

 

And Thor remembered himself and hastily let go.

 

Too soon. Loki’s knee rammed into his stomach, and at the sharp stab of pain Thor rolled onto his back.

 

Loki clambered atop of him, straddling his stomach, his thin fingers digging into Thor’s throat.

 

“Is this all your oaths are worth, _prince?”_ he hissed, leaning low over Thor’s face. “Your promise of good behavior? How _dare_ you lay hands on me, you filthy animal? I wouldn’t lie with you if you put the whole court to the sword. I’ll split open your friends’ bellies and string their guts from the rafters like streamers –”

 

Not thinking except to stop that flow of hateful words, words that if remembered would need to be followed by action for honor’s sake – words that curled lovingly around him like a blade around an apple – Thor pulled him down by the back of his neck and took his breath with him, stopping the boy’s sharp tongue with his own.

 

And just as smoothly the battle shifted gears to see who could devour the other first, as if the victor could draw out the soul of the other and lead him gently to kneel through this duel, and at length it drew out a keening whimper, though from which of them Thor couldn’t be sure.

 

But it was Loki who pulled away first, jerking back to stare down at him, breathing hard and dazed, his lips fallen open and trembling. Bruised from kissing.

 

 _I did that_ , was the idle thought that strayed through Thor’s head, and the boy’s fingers combed through the growth of hair of his chest, as they crept slowly to his throat again.

 

“No,” whispered Loki, almost to himself. “Not with you. Never with _you_.”

 

And he fled from Thor to the refuge of his bedchamber and slammed the door behind him.

 

Thor picked himself off the rug, a stunned horror running down his spine in aftershock.

 

What had he been doing, rolling on the floor with that _child?_ The ache in his groin reminded him exactly what he had been doing, what he had wanted – his fists clenched in the white fur.

 

An anguished moan came from behind the door, and was cut short, followed by the sound of muffled sobbing.

 

He should leave the boy be, let him bawl out his wordless rage and frustrations, and hope he would forget about all this in the morning. But from the other side of the door came a piteous noise like a wounded animal left alone to die, and Thor, shaking his head at the boy’s dramatics, dubbed himself a thrice-cursed fool.

 

The pale cold light of Jotunheim had dimmed to an eerie blue. There was no one else to light the lamps, and Thor minced his way through the mess of sticky jams and upended bowls and goblets, three days worth of angry uneaten meals, and pushed open the door.

 

The boy had not made it to his bed. He was leaning against it wearily, his head buried in the crook of his arm. Thor got down to a crouch beside him, and shook his head at the sight of tear tracks dried on the boy’s wan cheeks.

 

“I am sorry,” said Thor. “Are you unwell?”

 

The boy’s breathing was erratic, and grimly he was cradling his midriff and letting out small, shallow gasps.

 

“Shall I call for help?” Thor persisted. “Surely if you’re in distress –”

 

Loki’s eyes flew open as if he had only now registered Thor’s presence, and he edged away like a cornered animal.

 

But it wasn’t Thor who had startled him.

 

A tall silent figure crossed the room and stood over them, casting a long shadow.

The Farbauti-king sighed heavily, as if steeling himself for patience, and looking around, found a seat on a low bench and folded his hands calmly over his lap.

 

“Loki, _child_ ,” Farbauti said quietly. “Could you not keep your hands off one under your protection?”

 

“I – ”

 

For all his quickness, the boy was at a loss for words now, and he could only shake his head. If he were Asgardian, Thor would have held him in comfort, but the boy drew up his knees and would not look at him.

 

“Or did my eyes deceive me?” Farbauti pressed on. “Were you not tumbling in the furs, forcing your lust upon one who dare not tell you no? This behavior is unworthy of a prince. Did you take your father’s words at their face value and decide you should _take_ as you pleased?”

 

Loki tried to regain his composure, and failing, swallowed hard and looked down where a single fat tear sploshed a dark stain on his sleeve.

 

“Were you suddenly overcome with sudden desire for this… _Asgardian?_ How fortuitous. Have you recovered from your great passion, then, my child?” asked the Farbauti-king, his quiet voice laced with amusement now, and he delivered his next words like a hammer wrapped in a glove of velvet. “Only a month ago you swore you would die for love of lord Thrym, claiming your deceitful brother stole your choice form under your nose. While you were… _indisposed_ … your father is far-sighted indeed, to proceed with your brother’s nuptials.”

 

Thor, who had tried to remove himself inconspicuously and failed, found himself frozen in place by the terrible lack of screaming. Loki, wide-eyed and angry managed to swallow down his outrage in a strangled whisper.

 

“What… _now?”_

 

“Yes, _now_ ,” the Farbauti-king pressed on, “while you spread your legs for your _halfthing_ slave, and your father casts his wandering eye over that _witch_ from the North, your brother shall, in five days time, take his leave of us and be wed.”

 

“ _No.”_

 

It was a quiet scream, one that hollowed out inside instead of rending the air, but Farbauti only shook his head.

 

“You must learn patience, child,” he said. “And how to control yourself, else you will lose all good judgment. How can you be so reckless? Have no regard for your position? Would you have them spread vile rumors about you? Would you have them be true? Power is not only in the strength of your arms, but in perception, and how you would have others see you. What would they say if they saw you now?”

 

“It’s because I’m small, isn’t it?” said Loki, almost choking on his tears. “It’s because I’m a despicable runt, and you’ve always thought me _delicate_ and _weak,”_ he hissed. “Nobody will ever take me seriously. I’ve already had my time, I’ve been ready for ages, and you treat me like a child who’s never bled. I’m growing as fast as I can, but it’ll never be good enough, will it? I can’t _help_ it. _Father_ should have borne me, not you. I’ll never amount to anything the way I am. I’ll never be _king –_ ”

 

His voice climbed to a fevered pitch, and Thor winced, anticipating the blow that would fall to stop the aggrieved child’s tantrum. But the king’s hand, when it fell, came as a finger pressed over the boy’s lips, silencing him at once.

 

“If you would be king, child of my body,” said the Farbauti-king, “you cannot allow yourself to be dragged by the rules of another’s shaping, like a helpless prisoner tied behind a chariot, and blame the world for the chains with which you bind yourself. Ask yourself, Loki, who is driving that chariot, you or my lord Thrym? Thrym will not make you king. Let him go, child, and do so with grace.”

 

The unruffled calm of his demeanor clashed with the sparks of frustration rolling off the young prince, and trapped as an unwilling witness to this uncomfortable scene between the king and his child, Thor felt a stirring of pity for the boy told to put his feelings aside as if they were no more than a shabby toy bear he should have long outgrown.

 

Patiently Farbauti held out his hand, and gritting his teeth, Loki took it with the tips of his fingers, and perched on the edge of the seat next to him.

 

“Learn to see, child, not what is immediately at hand, but the shape of things to come.

 

Farbauti stroked the boy’s cheek fondly, rubbing his thumb over the bruise. “Look at the state of you, my child, grown up so quickly and so lovely besides. The sooner it is over with, the better it is for you.”

 

For the longest while, Loki held his gaze stubbornly, but the unfocused edge of his anger was dulled, and Thor wasn’t sure if he liked him better for it. It felt as if a light had gone out somewhere. Farbauti rose to his feet.

 

“Now take care of this commotion you have caused with your Asgardian charge, and do it _properly_ , child. Make it clear that you have had no dalliance with him. Do we understand each other?”

 

Loki bowed his head in assent, and before the Farbauti-king swept out of his chambers he paused to examine the array of gold and gems on the prince’s desk.

 

“As for your time,” said the king, his finger on a smooth gold torque. “The witch of the Ironwood is known to be quite skilled in the arts of pleasure. Perhaps you should receive him as your first? Your father would not refuse you your choice, seeing how he so approves of it himself.”

 

The boy nodded again, but his shoulders remained hunched, long after the door had closed behind the king and the footsteps had faded away. He sat there in the darkening room, as if he didn’t care if he turned to stone or the palace crumbled around him, whichever came first.

 

Thor was never one for words, but the boy needed comforting, no matter how spoiled and spiteful he was.

 

“I’m sorry,” Thor said again, though this time it wasn’t so much for hitting him in the face and the shameful stirring of lust he’d been quick to suppress. His arms ached where the boy had grazed him. With a kindly smile, Thor put a hand on the boy’s knee and Loki looked at him, a single fat tear rolling down his bruised cheek.

 

“Oh, _fuzzy_ , _I’m_ the one who should be sorry,” said the prince with a weary sigh, and stroked Thor’s beard fondly, if somewhat absently. “It won’t be so _very_ bad, even if you’re practically a nun. They say that after the fifth or sixth one takes you up the arse, you barely even feel it.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays, everyone!


	9. So long, frying pan; hello, fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big showdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year!
> 
> Dub-con, mind-fuckery, and related shameless talk abound. But the worst is yet to come.

 

 

 

 

The witch was taking tea and teaching the boy how to kiss with his fingers while his mother wasn’t looking.

 

At least that was how Thor interpreted it. The boy looked trapped, mesmerized as a mouse before a snake, and Thor couldn’t blame him. Of all the Jotnar he had encountered in this labyrinthine palace, from the brutal, hulking giants to the thin-blooded aesthetes, the witch was the most beguiling, his beauty shimmering like the blade of a knife that held your gaze, even as it carved out your eyes.

 

“He doesn’t _like_ him,” muttered Thor. “Even a blind man can see that.”

 

“Love, hate, sometimes it’s hard to tell,” Fenja said absently. He was brushing the misshapen pearls out of Thor’s hair and experimenting with complicated plaits. “How about we shave it all off? It’s a horrible nuisance. You don’t want your opponent yanking you around by the head, do you?”

 

“Are you done spouting banalities?” Irked, Thor tugged his hair away from Fenja. “And no, I’m not shaving my head. I’m no slave.”

 

Fenja shrugged, and resumed brushing him out with the horse currying comb. “Suit yourself. Vain as a peacock, you are, just like his nibs in there,” said Fenja, shaking his head. “And what do you care if the little monster doesn’t like his first? You’re spared the ordeal of breaking him in yourself, thank the stars. And the rest of us, we’re spared his nasty little tantrums after this. Nothing’s meaner than a horny virgin who can’t get any, believe me. We’ll all breathe easier around here after his holy highness gets a thorough poking.”

 

He handed Thor a mirror. Despite himself, Thor grunted his approval. Fenja had managed to braid his hair tight against his skull so it wouldn’t offer a tempting griphold in the scurry of the fight.

 

“It doesn’t seem right,” said Thor, but Fenja only laughed at him and rubbed his shoulders. He seemed to have gotten over his disdain for Thor.

 

“Why?” said Fenja. “He’s relieved of his pesky virginity by someone suitable. _And_ he doesn’t form a hopeless attachment when he’s in that ridiculously vulnerable state. It’s bad enough being young and inexperienced. How terrible it would be, emotionally latching onto the first person who touched you in a pleasurable way, when you don’t know any better. You can’t build a sensible life on _that._ Our way is better.”

 

“Bloodless,” scoffed Thor, shaking his head this way and that. It wasn’t because he liked the way his hair lay flat in evenly braided rows, oh no. “Or cold-blooded, I don’t know which is worse.”

 

“Better you mean,” said Fenja. “I suppose you barbarian Aesir confuse pawing at a person’s privates for affection. You’re no better than blind piglets mewling for a sow’s teats.”

 

“You’ve certainly changed your tune,” said Thor. “Did that fancy whore pull that stick out of your arse?”

 

“Yes,” rejoined Fenja smoothly. “See what a good round of rutting will do you? It clears your head and puts you in a fine humor. And you, _you_ should be the most reasonable, most affable lout to walk these halls, after your suitors are finished with you.”

 

And with that, Fenja burst tittering into his sleeve and ended up with the hiccups. Iði had to thump him on the back, and he didn’t even look annoyed.

 

While the majority of the household were preparing for the boy prince’s _white night¸_ Iði, and later Fenja, had taken Thor aside to prepare him for his role in the celebrations. They’d even recruited Hogun and Volstagg to help him train. Or provide moral support, of which they seemed to think he was in dire need.

 

Thor was glad to see his friends, and relieved to see they had adjusted reasonably well, but he could do without the hand-wringing. He almost would have admitted to missing that sharp-tongued brat if it weren’t for the inexplicable sting of betrayal he felt when he was reminded of the events to come.

 

To put it bluntly, Loki had offered him up as entertainment.

 

Ostensibly, it was to clear the prince from any slight that he might have dallied with Aesir before his time had come. Practically, it was to stall the grumbling from a bored jotunn court who were clamoring for a chance at Thor, after Loki had flaunted him like a choice morsel.

 

The ring was ceremonial, steeped in tradition, hearkening back to the days when single combat between two jotunn warriors would end in ritual mating. Nowadays, it had become yet another dissolute custom. It was _not_ custom, however, to pit one combatant against an endless line of eager challengers.

 

“Twelve,” said the laconic Hogun.

 

“There’s twelve of them, officially,” said Volstagg, “and from what I’ve heard, after that, it might descend into a free-for-all.” He circled Thor with large padded mitts and aimed punches which Thor easily ducked. “They’re bigger than you, Thor. And they know the rules, how to use the ring to their advantage.”

 

“I’m stronger,” said Thor. Hogun only shook his head, and lunged at him with a staff.

 

“When they’ve got you down, remember to relax,” said Volstagg, fussing like a mother hen. “Once the winner is declared, there’s no use fighting it. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

 

“I am _not_ going to lose,” growled Thor. “And no jotunn’s holding me down and fucking _me.”_

 

“That’s the spirit, Asgard,” said Iði, dancing out of his way and blocking a punch. “No one wants to fuck a dead fish. You fight ‘em till the very end. It feels better when you’re socking his face in. Last time someone bent me over and fucked me in the ring, he twisted my arms behind my back, and I came so hard I blacked out. Twice.”

 

He grinned wide at Thor, showing a small jewel worked into one of his teeth.

 

Behind the damask curtain, the witch leaned in to murmur in the boy’s ear as he reached for his cup, his lips grazing the shell of the boy’s ear, and the boy suppressed a tremor.

 

Thor barely blocked Hogun’s right hook in time.

 

“You almost got me.”

 

“Pay attention,” said Hogun, swinging into his left. “And stop staring.”

 

“What – I’m not –” he bit out before Iði charged him, head like a cannonball into Thor’s chest and knocked him over.

 

“Distractions,” said Iði, towering over him. “They’ll be the death of you, Asgard. And there’s no help coming from that quarter, you remember that. There’s no one fighting for you but yourself.”

 

 

§

 

 

_There’s no one fighting for you but yourself._

 

Those were the words that flashed across his mind as he tackled his opponent. But Thor had always known that, when all around him, everything disappeared but the fight, and he let the spirit of the Berserker flow through him.

 

The first challenger was a great lumbering brute who leered at him when he was thrown into the ring, and the audience roared. Easy pickings, was the consensus, only foreplay to what would be a rowdy night. Wine flowed freely and the air was heady with incense and pheromones.

 

Earlier, the boy prince had taken his seat, blank and glassy-eyed amidst the celebrations, decked out in a stiff white robe weighed down with heavy silver ornaments. His angular little face was drowning above the mass of finery, though it was blanched with nervousness, more pale frost than blue ice. The witch Angrboda was at his elbow.

 

Later, when the night grew mellow, the pair would retire to a secluded cove to proceed with their amorous business.  But for now, there was food, wine, music, and bawdy entertainment. Fucking the Asgardian would provide good sport.

 

Thor wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

 

 

The jotunn jumped back on his feet, too eager with easily wounded pride, and swerving out of the reach of his blows, Thor heaved a blow that felled him again.

 

A murmur rolled through the gathered throng, though it was split between disapproval that he, a mere Aesir, should have gotten the first advantage, or excitement that the outcome would not be a predictable, at the very least.

 

Without thinking, Thor scanned the lofty position on the dais where Laufey sat with his family, and his eyes found the boy prince.

 

Loki hadn’t even been watching.

 

His head was bowed, leaning in to listen to his eldest brother. When the witch Angrboda, laughing, put a hand on the boy’s knee to point out the ring, he jerked around in surprise, and shrugging, turned away again to talk to Helblindi.

 

Thor fumed. He wasn’t some faithful dog, looking for approval from his master after every trick, but still….

 

The jotunn at his feet groaned, but didn’t get back up again, and Thor looked down at him in dismay, and with a growing ire. His opponent seemed to be anticipating what was coming next. Out of breath, the jotunn leered up at him, and before Thor’s baffled eyes, he spread his legs.

 

 

§

 

 

_Fighting, fucking, with jotunns, who can tell?_

 

“I thought you didn’t take unwilling partners.” Thor had argued. Iði had gotten Hogun and Volstagg to attack Thor all at once, and now, with all three sprawled out on the ground, Thor was feeling more like his old self.

 

“The ring’s an exception,” said Fenja, who was perched on an ottoman filing his nails. Nothing Iði could say could convince him to join in on the training assault, but he looked excited nonetheless. “It’s pure instinct. Or maybe it’s collective memory, I suppose. All those rude, primal instincts dredged up in close quarters, the excitement, your blood pumping, spirits keening on edge.” He shivered in exaggeration, exulting in the images in his head. “It’s _so_ exciting. And well… who wouldn’t want to?”

 

“ _I_ wouldn’t,” said Thor. He wouldn’t think of his sparring partners that way, not his shield brothers, the arms master. That was obscene. It was disloyal–

 

“What happens when _I_ win?” asked Thor.

 

Fenja grabbed his sides with laughter again, but being one of the three that Thor had thrown down, Iði gave him a measured glance and got up on one elbow.

 

“Then,” said Iði slowly, “the same rules apply. If you win –”

 

“ _When_ ,” said Thor. “ _When_ I win.”

 

Iði stared up at him for a long while, then nodded. “When you win,” he conceded, and Hogun and Volstagg exchanged a triumphant look on Thor’s behalf. This was _Thor_ they were talking about, and they had kept their heads down and been pushed around as meek servants for far too long.

 

“When you win,” said Iði, “you’re in charge of the fucking.”

 

 

§

 

 

_Winner takes all, loser takes it on his back._

 

He had won this first fight, Thor was certain of it, and it had been a clean one. Thor had _won_.

 

So why did this beaten jotunn make him feel as if it was all a sham for yet another degrading _service_ that would be demanded of him? That whether he was held down and fucked, or whether he was only a cock put to stud and milked dry, he was still at their mercy, toyed with by jaded fancies.

 

The silence of the crowd had given way to cheering, and Thor took a step back and looked around the hall at the shades of boredom and curiosity that lasted for a moment before the casual spectator lost interest and turned to sample a savory morsel and laugh at a fleeting flirtation.

 

Laufey was resting back in his seat, his counselors whispering from either side at once, as he watched Thor from under hooded eyes. And still the boy ignored him, while the witch exchanged veiled pleasantries with Farbauti and his second son.

 

At the center of the ring, Thor roared out in challenge, “ _Next_!”

 

One after another, the challengers entered the ring, warier than the first, some faster, others stronger and even larger, but Thor was in his element. He threw them off one by one, breathing hard but only more revved up because of it, moving swift and deadly, and calling out, “ _next_ ,” in rapid succession until he was the last one standing.

 

Laufey was leaning forward now, watching him like a panther ready to pounce, as the excitement rose to a fevered pitch with the beating of drums and Thor’s ‘conquests’ piled up around him.

 

More _service_.

 

The bile rose in this throat, and he scanned the room. The boy, Loki, was staring at him now, so pale that even from this distance Thor thought he was a hair away from fainting.

 

There was one way out of this. They would have no part of him that they didn’t have to take. They would never have him _willingly._

 

 

§

 

 

It had been in a small space in the afternoon when the rooms were, by some miracle of chance, empty. Iði had been called downstairs, as had Hogun and Volstagg, to lend a hand in the coming preparations. Even Fenja had flapped off to attend to matters of guest lists and seating arrangements.

 

Thor was warm with sweat, stretching and flexing to keep wired. It would be only a few hours now.

 

The door slammed from the inner suite, and Loki stomped out and came rooted to a stop before him.

 

The boy hadn’t spoken to him since Farbauti had given him his ultimatum, and Loki had decided to serve up Thor as a side dish at his own coming out party. The silent treatment rankled at Thor. Perhaps it was shame, if the little monster was capable of feeling any.

 

Loki wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Ugh, why are you _dripping_ again? You’re secreting all over, how _disgusting_! Are you excited for that fucking already?”

 

“Are you?” inquired Thor with a mocking grin, and caught Loki’s wrist before the slap landed. “Watch it, boy. I’m primed to take down your best. You, little one, you’re just a snack.”

 

The boy prince tugged to pull free, but Thor held fast. They hadn’t painted the boy – he was innocence after all, to be led over the threshold of experience – but he looked ghastly pale, his strained nerves sparking off his skin like static electricity.

 

“Get your hands off me, you filth –”

 

Thor had ever been gentle and considerate with his lovers, and all this casual talk of fighting and fucking repulsed him and left him cold inside, but this one _…_. He shook his head. He always fell for the cold ones. It was a sickness with him –

Loki kicked him in the shins and swept his feet out from under him, and before Thor could get back up, twisted his arm behind his back and flattened him to the floor.

 

He breathed hard, and laughing Loki pushed his face into the white bearskin and clambered onto the back of his thighs to hold him down. Thor went rigid.

 

“ _Fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy,”_ said Loki playfully. “Did you think the princes of Jotunnheim spent their hours composing poetry to the air? Actually, we do. I’m the best. I should read you some of the inane doggerel Býleistr comes up with. It’ll have you in stitches. But, dear, stupid _fuzzy,_ we also learn how to _fight_.”

 

He wasn’t _fighting_ right now, not in any way Thor had learned, but he lay there on his stomach, immobilized, as the boy gingerly lifted the loincloth from behind.

 

“They haven’t looked after you properly, those idiots,” whispered Loki. “I told them to take _care_ of you.”

 

When cold fingers pried apart his buttocks, Thor almost bucked him off.

 

“What are you –?!”

 

“They’re stupid, that’s what they are,” said Loki, treading between amusement and anger. “They don’t mean to be unkind. It’s just that they don’t know much about Aesir, not the way _I_ do. Wait here, there’s a pot of goose fat on the shelf –”

 

“I won’t be oiled up for a good plowing, if that’s what you’re on about!” growled Thor, and was shocked still when Loki smacked him on his left butt cheek.

 

“Grew yourself a cunt overnight, did you?” sneered Loki. “Where do you think they’ll start fucking you, then, if not up your arse?”

 

“They _won’t_ because I’ll win –”

 

“What, against all twelve of them?”

 

“Yes, all _twelve_ of them, and anyone who comes after,” said Thor, not without pride. “Why the concern, now? You set me up to this.”

 

Loki was quiet for a moment, and cautiously Thor rolled onto his back, careful not to upset the boy straddling his thighs. Loki didn’t look at his face, concentrating instead on the light hairs that grew sparse before the springy bush at his groin, and gently he sank his thin fingers into them.

 

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” he muttered, and Thor held his breath as the boy combed through his pubis, as if he was caring for a small furry pet. The dull ache of blood rushing to his cock was pleasurable all the more for wanting the boy to please _please_ touch it, but Loki wouldn’t, not yet.

 

“Don’t be frightened,” said Thor, not really knowing what he was saying. “It’s supposed to be enjoyable. Even if you have it both ways. If there’s pain, the lasses say it’s short and sweet besides –”

The boy gave a bitter laugh and palmed his cock. Thor bucked up into his grip, and almost wilted at the chill of it, but Loki kept it up with light swift strokes.

 

“If they tie a knot at the base, you’ll be forced to keep it up,” said Loki, as if he was presented with an academic question. “That way you can still stay hard even when the temperature doesn’t suit you.”

 

“What if I don’t want to?” Thor bit out. The boy was playing with him, and he didn’t care – this was a game he didn’t mind. “What if I don’t _want_ to keep fucking anyone and everyone I’ve beaten?”

 

“Mighty sure of ourselves, are we?” mocked Loki, and Thor rutted into his hands, urging him to get on with it. “Why wouldn’t you? _It’s supposed to be enjoyable.”_

 

“Maybe – _ha, yes, like that –_ maybe I’m more— _discerning—”_

 

“Are you now?” said Loki with a sneer, but Thor cupped his hands around the boy’s, and held his gaze. So close, he’d come any second now, spilling his seed over the boy’s fingers, his own –

 

“ _Yes.”_

 

Loki jumped back, and Thor fucked empty air.

 

Then the cold hands were back again, not around his desperately weeping prick, but pinning him down at the hips. He keened, rutting shallowly, begging for friction, but Loki held him down with an iron grip, his bony fingers digging into Thor’s pelvis, not touching him where he wanted to be touched, deliberately withholding relief, comfort, pleasure, that little _brat –_

 

“Once there was a great king, from a line of kings as old as the hills, who came down to the plains of ice and defeated all challengers in single combat,” said Loki, as if reciting a lesson learned in the schoolroom. But his eyes were fixed on Thor’s, his breath curling around Thor’s prick, and his voice turned mocking again.

 

“But when his foes bowed low and offered themselves up to him, he didn’t plunge in and plant his seed in the finest warriors of the land. He said, and I quote, from the great jotunn poet whose name has been forgotten three dozen times over: What use have I for those who bend over in defeat? My heart lies with another, one that is pure and unbeaten, and only for him do I lay down my arms and embrace defeat with love.”

 

At the sound of stirring outside, Loki sat upright and gathered his heavy white robes to him. And at the sharp slap that came next, Thor was taken off guard, especially as it landed on his hard cock, and just as unexpectedly he came in a burst of pain, spurting his seed over himself as Loki’s weight lifted from him.

 

“And _that, fuzzy,_ " sneered Loki, "is how you refuse prize pussy. In the name of _love_.”

 

 

                       

§

 

 

Amidst the cheering of the ever so fickle jotunn court, Thor looked down at his opponents, twelve to a number, all defeated and ready to receive him, and shouted a challenge out to the hall.

 

“My heart lies with another,” he shouted, and the noise dropped down to a murmur as if a door had closed on them. “One who is pure and unbeaten.”

 

The ring cleared, and for a moment, Thor stood alone. Even Laufey leaned back, half obscured in shadows. It was Thor’s chance to walk out of the ring with his head high, a proven warrior even among this lot, and stand with them as equals.

 

Then, the murmur drew back completely, like a red tide receding to make a path for a great king, and the jotunn who emerged and entered the ring was Thrym, host of the northern armies and lord of Thrymheim.

 

“If that is your heart, Asgard,” said the warlord, “be prepared to defend it.”

 

And Thor met with the thirteenth challenger in the ring. At a nod from Laufey, a small golden rattle signaled the beginning of the last fight.

 

But from the elevated seat on the dais, the witch bowed twice to the king and his family, and Laufey took his youngest son’s face and stroked fingers dipped in gold paint once down his brow, before Angrboda led him away to begin his night in earnest.

 

 _Distractions_ , Iði had warned him, and in that small window of chance, the massive jotunn bore down on Thor and knocked him to the ground.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I didn't get to the massive awful I hinted at last time, but it's coming next.


	10. And the Worm Turns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I really have to issue one last warning. This is the awful chapter I've been hinting at in comments. 
> 
> Stop. 
> 
> Take a good look at the tags up there. There are a few new ones added. See those? Those are warnings (also spoilers, but warnings are always that). All the previous ones still hold one way or another.
> 
> Are you still okay with this? If not, turn back. Do not cross the bridge. It's been nice having you. No hard feelings. Bye~
> 
> If you're still okay with where this fic is going, come on over. We're heading toward that painful bump before this thing goes full-on marriage fic.
> 
> \------------

 

 

 

 

The chamber that had been set aside for them was little more than a grotto carved into the ice. Loki stood at the mouth of the white cave. It was sparse and empty, except for a simple pallet of furs at the far end and a small fire over which Angrboða had hung an iron pot.

 

Any other youth would have had to duck to enter. The reminder of his stunted growth irked him.

 

“This, _this_ is where I’m supposed to give it up?” he sneered. “This is where I’m to be transported to throes of ecstasy previously unimagined by your precious dick? What a dump. Don’t tell me Farbauti helped you decorate it.”

 

Angrboða smiled into the sickly sweet fumes rising from the small pot.

 

“Don’t forget, you will take your pleasure as well as receive it,” said the witch. “We must nurture the wholeness of ourselves, not lean to favor one side over the other.”

 

“Is that how you crawled into my father’s bed?” asked Loki. “By fucking my mother, too?”

 

“The Farbauti-king and I have an understanding,” said Angrboða, holding out a thin, piping hot bowl. “But enough of that. This is your night. Sit, drink. Talk to me of what pleases you.”

 

With an angry huff, Loki unclasped the heavy white robe and tossed it into a corner, then shimmied out of his loincloth, not bothering to undo the intricate folds. This wouldn’t take long. He strode across the cave, wearing his nakedness like an armor.

 

He was no shy, hesitant child. He wouldn’t be intimidated, nor would he be awed silly by the ‘mysteries’ of sex, toyed with by some provincial hedge witch. Even if said witch did have pretty hair. 

 

With a pang, he remembered Thor, how stupidly trusting he was, how soft and warm and pliant he had been under Loki’s hands, and how Loki had tossed him into a pit of wolves to save face.

 

And how, against all odds, that stupid animal had started fighting his way out. Stupid _fuzzy,_ so stupid that he didn’t even know he was supposed to _lose._

 

Loki stalked over to the spread of white furs and flung himself down. Casting a narrow-eyed glance at Angrboða who was kneeling beside the furs, he spread his legs with as much contempt as he could muster.

 

“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled. “Provide your service and be quick about it.”

 

He almost didn’t feel it at first, the touch that was so light it was barely there. When he shivered, it felt as if he was shaking off a ghost of a spider crawling up his thigh. Then with a smooth quick movement, the witch’s fingers brushed across the lip of his cunt and palmed his pubis, flickering inside delicately before they stilled, clamping him shut. A head of a thumb found the tangle of nerves that was his clit and played with it.

 

He bit back a whimper – Angrboða’s fingers were thin and bony, and this was not meant to be gentle.

 

“If we must be direct, answer me this, for curiosity’s sake,” said the witch, in a voice barely audible. “Did you plan this from the beginning?”

 

“Planned what?” Loki bit out. The rough thumb rubbed lazily in circles, teasing at the little nub, and he grit his teeth. “Stop tickling me and touch my cock, whore.”

 

Swift as a panther, Angrboða was upon him, body pressed against his, lips almost brushing against his but for a wall of breath, and angrily, Loki turned his face away. But Angrboða gripped his chin and forced him to look back.

 

“Did you plan this?” asked the witch. “Did you plan to pit your Asgardian against twelve? He could not have known our ways so intimately. He could not have known the legends.”

 

Loki tried to buck him off, and felt fingers slipping inside, and – stupid treacherous body –finding him slick, too slick and too wet after just this. They played inside him, forcing his body to crave more, to buck up and spread his legs wider.

 

Then it hit him again – the fever, and the sharp pain like needles gutting him from the inside out, and Loki let out a howl.

 

 

§

 

 

The force of a jotunn three feet taller than him, slamming into his chest was somewhat like that time in Midgard, when Thor had been tossed into a frozen lake by a mastodon.

 

Then again, Thor remembered with a grin, as he rolled out of the way of a fist and jumped back on his feet, he had a pair of great throwing spears made from that beast’s tusks.

 

The first stunned blow had only charged him with a wilder energy, and he laughed as he darted out of the way, guffawed as he landed a well-aimed blow on Thrym’s thigh and brought him to one knee.

 

He was Thor, god of thunder, and the force of it coursed through his veins, light as air, quick as lightning, more powerful than the force of a thousand storms gloved in an invisible blow.

 

Laughter always shook his opponent’s confidence, and though Thrym didn’t show it overtly, if his movements took on a split second’s hesitance, if his feet paused before charging, Thor knew it and Thrym felt it as well.

 

With a flicker of doubt, Thrym charged at him again, and Thor ran straight toward him instead of the other way, vaulted on his bruised thigh, and leapt onto the great jotunn’s back, pulling him down onto his back with a thud that seemed to shake the great pillars of the hall.

 

The roar of the court was deafening. The mannered court had turned rowdy, on their feet shouting and, Thor realized, cheering. _For him._

_Everyone likes a winner_ , Tyr had always said. _But it’s_ how _you win that matters._

He held out his hand to help the jotunn get up, and ignoring him, Thrym got to his feet and lunged again. Embarrassment made him clumsy, and he made little mistakes, and slipped, took a blow he should have blocked.

 

Thor refused to toy with him – this was a venerated general, he didn’t deserve that – but he wanted this over before it got ugly, and the jotunn lord wasn’t one to give in gracefully with a bow, not from the look on his face.

 

He had called down thunder before, but that had been with Mjölnir and under his father’s tutelage. Now with the heat of battle flowing through him, he brought it down through his bare fist to split the ice clear across the ring, just as Thrym sent a wave of ice rolling toward him, and two great powers met in the middle and exploded, burning the air between them.

 

But before the smoke cleared and they could charge again, a voice rang out across the hall.

_“Stop!”_

 

§

 

 

He was frozen inside, and his skin felt like it was on fire. Shivers wracked through him, as he writhed and kicked out at air. The ache in his gut burned and froze and twisted, and he struggled to keep it inside, but already, he could feel it pulling out its roots and getting ready to rush out of him like the bitter backwash of a fever.

 

Fingers pulled out of his cunt dripping, and holding him down by the throat, Angrboða pushed aside his cock and painted vertical lines low across his pelvis with his own juices.

 

“What are you doing?” he croaked.

 

His throat was parched, dry enough to crack and split and desperately he looked around for water. There was the bowl of sweet smelling tea, cooled now, and he reached for it, downing it in two gulps. Instead of quenching his thirst, it seemed to set his throat aflame, and Loki went into a fit of coughing and hacking.

 

“Oh,” he said rather bleakly, and dropped the bowl onto the ice floor where it shattered. “What have you _done_ to me?”

 

“Nothing that shouldn’t have been done weeks ago.”

 

“You knew?”

 

“From the moment I saw you.”

 

“Does my moth—does the Farbauti-king know?” Loki pressed on. “He can’t know about this. Did you go tattling to him to win his favor?”

 

“He suspects a dozen terrible things. This might be one of them,” said Angrboða. “I might have led him to believe other lies. Now answer me this. Did you plan to have your Asgardian challenge twelve of Jotunheim’s finest –”

 

Loki snorted, despite his predicament, and saw a mocking smile mirroring his own on the witch.

 

“—just as Vindsval came down from the hills and smote down the twelve great lords of the icy plains?”

 

“Did I do such a thing?” Loki mocked, before gripping his stomach as a spasm went through him. “Would anyone have noticed?”

 

“Noticed?” Angrboða pulled him into his lap and rocked him. “Noticed how you set up the pageantry of kingship before them, and prettied up your _pet_ as the great Vindsval –”

 

This time, when the shivers came, Angrboða held him tight and stroked his back. Loki felt like he could puke up his guts, and hoped the mess of it would stick in the witch’s pretty hair.

 

“He could not have known the words,” Angrboða whispered. “But he knew the words.”

 

Blearily, through his fevered haze, Loki put together what the witch was nattering on about.

 

“He could have known,” said Loki. “He’s a prince – even of that mudbowl of Asgard – he must have had _some_ education. He’s not a total lummox.”

 

Loki tried pulling away, but he was too weak, all the strength fled from his limbs, and he slumped like a marionette with its strings cut, into the comfort of Angrboða’s embrace.

 

“Wouldn’t it have been _funny?”_ said Loki, a burble of delighted laughter escaping against Angrboða’s shoulder, but it was weak and breathless. “That _oaf_ of an Asgardian, rising from the ring with the glory of the god-king of _Jotunnheim_ gracing his hairy head? Not that any of those primped-up buffoons would have recognized my little joke.”

 

“Clever, clever little prince,” said Angrboða, tracing circles into the small of his back. “But after his triumph over the twelve, when Vindsval declares his heart set aside only for the purest, the undefeated… you knew the pride of the court would not stand for this. For this _Asgardian_ to claim his place as Vindsval reborn –”

 

“Idiots,” muttered Loki. “They barely know how to spell their own names and keep track of their bastard broods. What do they know of the god-kings? What would they care? It was merely a jest at the expense of their ignorance, a slap in their faces aping at a caress.”

 

“But it wasn’t a mere jest, was it? Your father would know. Thrym would,” said Angrboða, and Loki caught his breath. He could feel Angrboða's thin face stretch into a wolfish smile, so close to his own. “Lord Thrym would not allow for it, to have a mere Asgardian gloat in his victory over us, knowingly or not. He has too much honor for that, and too much pride. And you knew that.”

 

“Honor? Did you know, witch, that it’s not clear who actually won that fight?” Loki asked, rolling out the words one by one, softly and gently as he fought for breath.

 

Loki could barely see through the red haze of his vision. He felt Angrboða lay him gently down on the pallet again. He curled up, holding his stomach, as the ache spread from deep down in his core all the way up his spine, like a tree lit up with sharp, electrifying pain even unto its smallest highest branches.

 

“That in the ring, the challenger from the hills met the thirteenth warrior, and they fought until only one remained standing.” Loki closed his eyes as another spasm shot through him. “One _killed_ the other. So much for our vaunted traditions. The _passion_ that rises from the fight,” he managed to sneer. “How we resolve our _differences_ on a higher plane _._ It’s nothing but a couple of louts fucking each other over after a brawl. There’s nothing _holy_ about it.”

 

Angrboða nodded, smoothing a hand over the boy’s brow. “And the winner was declared the god-king Vindsval, he who was undefeated and fair besides, he who took the witch Auðembla as wife, and thus began the line of kings to this day.”

 

Loki choked on a silent laugh. “But there’s the rub, isn’t it? No one says whether the challenger was Vindsval, or the warrior was Vindsval. It could have been either of –” he broke off to smother a keening whine.

 

“Rest, sweetling, your time has come, though not the way your mother would have wished for you, but –”

 

“No,” Loki shook him off. “You found out. You found out everything. You might as well know. I wanted to spit on them, tear down their _ridiculous_ rules and the vapid traditions they set up in the name of _order_ and _harmony._ It’s nothing but a _sham_ now, nothing but posturing and preening. There’s no Vindsval, no hero, no great warrior king –”

 

“But you wished there to be,” said Angrboða. “You goaded lord Thrym to step up to the fight –”

 

“For _me!”_ shrieked Loki. “He should have _fought_ for me! Screw the _rules_! Screw _propriety!_ He should have thrown over my brother and come to _me_ when it happened! I chose him _first,_ and he chose me back! He should have refused Býleistr! My brother has no greater claim to the throne than I do!” Loki shook his head violently. “So yes, I goaded him to fight. I set up this ridiculous show for his attention. If he didn’t, if he _lost_ , he deserved the shame, all of it, down to the last filthy drop heaped upon his head!”

 

“And if he won?” asked Angrboða, gently now. Loki sighed and looked up at the witch, both of them, for once empty of guile and filled only with weariness.

 

“Then I would have made him king in their eyes, and he would have come to me and bent his knee,” Loki whispered. “To me and our child.”

 

And his face twisted, and Angrboða held him down as Loki bit into his own wrist and twisted as the last of the shivers coursed through him, shaking as if to break every bone in his body.

 

 

§

 

 

The customs were different, but Thor was a son of a king, and raised in a king’s hall. He knew there was a charge to the air, felt the crackle of power and the change in the wind, and it wasn’t just from the clash of ice and thunder.

 

As the smoke cleared across the ring, he stared into the eyes of the lord Thrym, who was furious and barely containing his urgent need to rip out Thor’s throat. This was no mere rage and instinct. Greater things were at stake, and he had been told to step down and hold back, like a great wolf made to heel.

 

Laufey knew it, too. He was the god-king of Jotunnheim, and before legal wrangling, form and courtesies, he above all others knew the moment when the crown was about to pass to the next king, in all the ways that mattered. In the ways of the spirit and the ice.

 

And he had to stop it.

 

The rumble of the crowd was growing. It wasn’t dangerous yet, but it would be if it was not satisfied. The tenor of the hall walked on a knife’s edge. They felt the shift of power, but were not aware of the particulars of it, not as Laufey was, or Thrym. All they needed was the motions of passing, the show of some reward granted to a strong young victor. The crown needn’t pass itself.

 

Thrym glared at him from under his brows, bristling. Thrym would know it was not enough, that the true contest had been cut short, but he would not act against Laufey. Not yet.

 

“On the eve of our dearest son’s coming of age,” said Laufey in his great silky voice, rumbling like an underground river, “we will not lock horns and bring the walls down upon his head. In this greatest of realms, we embrace the gift of power made to us tonight, from the general of our Northern armies, Lord Thrym, the pillar of strength that bears the weight of mighty Jotunheim. Do we have your love, lord Thrym?”

 

He held out his hand to the other jotunn, and holding Laufey’s hard gaze, Thrym with a grudging pause that only he and Laufey noted, bowed his forehead to the king’s hand before he stepped back.

 

“And from the stranger at our hearth, we recognize a true jotunn heart. Come, friend Thor,” said Laufey, turning his smile on the Asgardian prince, and held out his hand.

 

“Kneel, you idiot,” someone hissed from the side. It was Fenja, who ducked out of sight before anyone important could spot him.

 

Thor knelt, and felt something heavy rest over his shoulders – more frippery he thought, before he squinted and recognized the flat polished metals, twelve of them signaling land accorded to a warrior of the realm, a jotunn lord with men’s souls under his care.

 

“Rise my son,” said the Laufey-king, carefully gathering the skeins of his kingship in his wily grasp again, “as a warrior and friend of Jotunnheim.” And he gave Thor a knowing grin. “Go now to find your pure and undefeated, and see if he will have you. You have earned it.”

 

 

And propriety drew a breath of relief. The formal gestures had been made, and the vague, dissatisfied grumbles were appeased. Laufey hid his own sigh of relief. But he could feel the needle gazes piercing at his side, the one as expected from Thrym, and the other, more familiar and accustomed, from Farbauti, and he sighed again. This wouldn't be the end of it.

 

 

With that the party seemed to begin in earnest, but not before Fenja threw himself at Thor’s neck, then Hogun and Volstagg, and Thor had to brace himself as they, joined by Iði, threw him in the air, and the other jotunns made a game of it.

 

He was thankful that parties ran along similar lines in the realms: food accompanied by vast quantities of drink, easily transmuted through the alchemy of lust into cheerful talk and unsubtle fondling. Well, they had all warned him of the orgy.

 

Thor made his way past cheerful congratulations, slaps on the back that turned into groping hands on the rear, vague, slurred greetings, but this was not where he had to be. The thought was blurry in his head, but it grew clearer as he left the crowded hall, and he picked up his pace as he ascended the spiraling staircase carved into the ice.

 

If all he would receive was a pat on the head, figurative or literal, a word that he had done well, a small smile and a prickly joke, it was the thought of those little things that made his heart lighter as he drew near.

 

It was as if he had come upon a fallen star in the snow, and without knowing what it was, his heart knew that he must love it, even if now it gave only the faintest of light.

 

 

§

 

 

When it was over, Loki turned on his side, and the Angrboða pressed a cool thin hand to his cheek and caught the tears in the webs of his fingers.

 

“My child,” he whispered. “He’s gone.”

 

“You’re barely out of childhood yourself, my prince,” said Angrboða. “You should have waited. All these weeks, it’s sapped away at your strength and curtailed your growth. You should have waited for your time. You should have….”

 

But there were no _should_ _haves_ , no rules for miscreants like this, mischief-makers who played with fire on the edge of the forest. Born outcasts. Like him. They were cut from the same cloth, the witch and this rebel prince.

 

The boy curled up around the pool of blood that had coursed out of him, and dipped his fingers, sorting through the darker clots as if he was searching for something.

 

“But I loved him so much,” he whispered. “And he would have come to me in the end. I know he would have. If the child hadn’t died –”

 

“Sweetling, there was no child,” said Angrboða. “It never lived long enough to become one. It was barely a grain of sand. Yet it forced you to carry death inside you for weeks, and it had become poisoned flesh eating away at you. I’ve only forced out the rot. Now you can begin to mend.”

 

“But there _was,”_ insisted Loki, dragging his fingers through the blood. “There _was_ a baby. I felt it. I _made_ it. I was strong enough for him. I _loved_ him –”

 

The witch gathered Loki to him in comfort, and even against this the boy fought, pounding his small fists at his chest as Angrboða held him, raging against fate, against despair, against helplessness.

 

It was too early for the boy to do much more than shuttle between seething and grieving, and Angrboða thought to himself that this one had too much fire in him for a _frost giant_ , so much that he would explode if he was not tempered with someone warmer.

 

Not the conventional foolishness that matched fire with ice. Paired with the cold steely core of the great jotunn lords, he might blow up the world and everyone and himself along with it.

 

And as much as Angrboða enjoyed a good upset as much as any other witch, no one wanted to bring about Ragnarok over such a slight piece of hell as a broken heart.

 

The boy hiccupped, and muttered into Angrboða’s chest. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? You won’t spread shameful rumors about this?”

 

Angrboða held him close and rocked him like a babe. “Sweetling, your secret is mine, and I shall cut out the tongue of anyone who would speak of it. But no one will know, ease your fears.”

 

“Promise?”

 

“I promise.”

 

The boy paused, then, his fingers curled around Angrboða’s tangled hair, before asking softly,

 

“What do tongues taste like?”

 

The witch smiled, and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

 

“Quite lovely, you’ll see,” said Angrboða, “especially grilled in a sweet lemon sauce.”

 

That drew out a small snort that ended in a sigh, and the witch rocked him back and forth, humming a lullaby he didn’t remember learning, before the child could choke on his tears again.

 

 

It wasn’t the right time for Thor to come stumbling upon them, the boy naked in his lap and on the brink of hysteria, covered only in his own blood, but then, there was never a right time for these kinds of things.

 

 

His gasp was echoed by the boy’s own, as two pairs of eyes widened at the sight of each other, neither of them in joy.

 

“What is the meaning of this?" growled Thor. "What have you done to him, you vile creature?”

 

And before he could claw the lumbering brute’s eyes out, the hairy Asgardian threw him across the cave, and with a sickening crack Angrboða hit his head hard against the ice. Numb, he lay there not sure which had broken.

 

Like a wildcat, the boy prince threw himself on his Asgardian swain, and all the fury and pain, the unspent rage that had coiled up inside the boy was unleashed on the unsuspecting barbarian, who barely defended himself under the onslaught.

 

But finally, Angrboða gathered his wits and dragged himself over to pull the boy off of him, and held his arms back.

 

“Get out! Get out! Get _out_!” shrieked the boy at his dumbfounded servant, “What are you even _doing_ here?! And what are you staring at?”

 

“Hush child, hush,” the witch whispered in his ear, “no harm is done, hush. He doesn’t know….”

 

The Asgardian blinked stupidly at them, his hurt blue eyes resting on Loki. “I… I came to see you as soon as I…. I think I won. I won against twelve of them, and then - Are you… are you unwell?”

 

This only seemed to enrage the boy further, though the true significance of it seemed lost on him at the moment.

 

But Angrboða had felt the tremors from below, the tone of the ice, and how it matched the wisps of sheer power rolling off this brute. So that’s what it had meant. The land always recognized the king first. Angrboða should have known.

 

The boy prince saw nothing of the sort.

 

“Are you truly this _stupid?_ Who wants to see _you?_ Did you not hear me the first time? Get _out_!”

 

The Asgardian backed out, obeying as if by instinct, stopping only when the boy shook off Angrboða’s warning hands and rushed to Thor. He grabbed a handful of hair, and confused, Thor blinked at him.

 

“And if you dare tell anyone about this,” hissed Loki, “I’ll carve out your eyes and make you eat them. Do you understand me?”

 

Thor nodded dumbly, not really hearing anything but the hatred.

 

“Now get out. I don’t ever want to see your ugly face, _ever_ again.” 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I guess they'll have to get married now. Yay.


	11. Wedding Bells from Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like it says on the tin, an arranged marriage fic. At last!
> 
> Lots of politics. Lots of talking. A lot less fooling around. Boy, doesn't that sound like fun.

\-------

 

 

 

He was free of this place.

 

Half of Laufey’s prize bought back Volstagg’s and Hogun’s freedom as well. Volstagg had a tidy bundle over his shoulder, spilling over with polished stones with magical properties and rich fabrics.

 

“Souvenirs?” Thor raised a querying eyebrow.

 

Volstagg laughed. “I picked up a few odds and ends. My Hilde will want a nice present after such a long stay away. I warrant you’ll have a few precious baubles to take home yourself,” he said, punching Thor on the arm, “our conquering hero.”

 

Thor fingered the amulet in his pocket. The polished bone was warm in his palm, as if it was a live thing, asleep but pressed against him for comfort. The boy had tied it round his ankle that morning they had gone down to breakfast, before events had started rolling down hill at a calamitous pace.

 

Or perhaps they had been set in motion long before that, and only now could Thor see a glimpse of the whole picture.

 

Enough. He’d had enough of this, spidery plots and underhandedness and scheming. He needn’t entangle himself further in this tortured web.

 

Thor had gifted the other half of his bounty to Iði. It would be enough to buy the jotunn an officer's commission or a respectable farm.

 

“So you can marry that sour-faced scribe of yours,” said Thor. “If you want to wait for him to make up his mind.”

 

“As if he’d ever have a low-born yob like me,” said Iði, rolling his eyes, but grinned back.

 

He was going home to Asgard, back to the golden realm free of shadows and scheming. He’d won his freedom.

 

Still, as his friends gathered together their meager belongings and made arrangements to return via the Bifrost, Thor couldn’t help pushing down a kernel of disappointment. The boy hadn’t looked out once. It was time to put Jotunheim behind him.

 

 

§

 

 

“He’s leaving, you know. You won’t come out and bid him farewell? And I thought you two were getting along splendidly… well, you didn’t want to strangle him too often, did you? Do come out. For politeness’ sake at least. How long will you be moping in bed? Shall we lock up the wing and send the servants home for the rest of the year?”

 

On the bed, the mound of white furs didn’t stir. With a long-suffering sigh, Fenja resumed his scribbling and crossing out on a long list of expenses.

 

“What did that awful witch do to you? Was it not very good? Shall we demand a refund?” Fenja asked, as he made a detailed note in the margins. “He should be punished for being so terrible in bed. It’s a crying shame if he made a mess of things, when you should have had _such_ a good time. It’s downright depressing if I think about it. Shall I have Iði administer a beating? Never mind a beating. The Laufey-king seems to have lost interest in the witch anyway. If you want, we could arrange to break his neck. It’ll save us the bother of having to send him a present.”

 

A head poked out. For a second, Loki’s face was scrunched up in that fierce familiar look that preceded the usual harangue of  _fuck off and die, Fenja._

 

Then it crumbled and went back to blank. Loki leaned back wearily, gathering the furs to his throat.

 

“No,” he said, in a tired voice that labored to string two words together. “Send him a present, Fenja. Send something nice. The pouch of rubies will do.”

 

“What?” squawked Fenja, dropping his pen. “The whole purse?”

 

Loki closed his eyes and nodded.

 

“But he’s a nobody!” said Fenja. “We don’t have to curry favor with him! Why should we waste – ” But there, he stopped. “Do you wish to… shall I ask him to… ah, _attend_ you again?”

 

“No,” muttered Loki sullenly, then changed his mind. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t ever want to – leave me _alone_ , Fenja. No, wait. Stay here. Everyone leaves me.”

 

Tired of sitting up, Loki lowered himself down on his side and looked at nothing. The fur rippled where his slight breath touched it. Fenja bit his lip.

 

The boy – no, he was a boy no longer – had been out of sorts ever since his _white night,_ listless and drained when he should have been cutting a swathe through the court, flaunting his newly gained maturity. Instead, Loki drifted in and out of sleeping to lie awake in a dead sort of way that was not much better. Whatever was the matter? Was he mourning the loss of his wretched virginity?

 

It made Fenja want to shake something until it broke. But that would be crude, uncouth, and Fenja despised histrionics. Besides, that would solve nothing.

 

Downstairs, Iði was itching for a fight, glowering darkly at anyone to just look at him funny, for an excuse to hit something or better yet someone, until the air cleared and they had their ridiculous high-spirited prince again.

 

“What about your Asgardian?” Fenja willed himself to be gentle. “He was yours to look after. Tell him he did well and go see him off properly, there’s a good master.”

 

There was no answer for the longest while that Fenja thought Loki had fallen back asleep again.

 

“He’s not mine if he’s leaving, is he?” said Loki.

 

“That’s not how it works, I think,” said Fenja, biting down a scream. “Rather, he’s yours if he returns to you. And he might, if you show that he would be welcome.”

 

But Loki did not look very interested in the subject. “It doesn’t matter, Fenja, it really doesn’t.” He was absently plucking out the soft downy hairs from between the long silvery ones on the fur.

 

“Have you ever lost something, Fenja, and then realized afterwards that you never had it at all?” Loki asked and went on, not really waiting for an answer. “That it was never yours to begin with because he had the power to withhold it? That he never loved you back? And when your eyes are opened to that, it’s so terrible, so poisonous, so crippling, that it eats away inside as if you’ve willingly swallowed hot acid. I think love is like that. It kills you and leaves no trace once its dirty work is done. An invisible knife that strikes from afar, and drives your victim to slowly die of rot and madness. Wouldn’t that make the perfect murder? I’m sure I could pickle a spell from all this fountain of bile inside –”

 

“Hush, don’t talk that way,” said Fenja quickly. “It’s utter nonsense, terrible frightful nonsense. What would your gracious dam say if he heard you talking like this? Hush. And you’re too young to be so cynical. Don’t.”

 

“Oh, Fenja,” said Loki with a horrible little laugh, “I’m allowed to be cynical because I’m young. When I’m old and withered, I shall have to put a brave smile on things and mouth pleasant lies, otherwise I would be hideous inside out, and no one could bear to be near me. Let me spout ugliness while I’m still pretty.”

 

He sighed and curled up into a ball again, and Fenja came to sit beside him on the bed and stroked the lines of raised whorls in a way that soothed him.

 

But Fenja was remembering a time when he had been a soft, unmarked thing, wet behind the ears, and his father’s big handsome equerry had taken him into the stables and – hindsight made this clearer – used him vigorously and often to sate his lusts, and Fenja had believed it to be something sweeter. For half a season, Fenja had wandered about, dazed at the sharp dizzying thrill of being in love. That was before it all exploded in a thunderclap of his father’s dreadful anger, and his dam had had to bundle him out of the house under a cloud, and sent him away to serve at court. How preposterously naïve he had been. _Love,_ he recalled with a snort, and attempted to pull himself together. After all this time, he still bristled at the memory.

 

“Perhaps you need a change of air,” said Fenja brightly. “Take yourself out of the palace for a while. A nice jaunt into the country would do you a world of good. We should have a few choice invitations, even one from Lord Thrym asking if you would like to accompany him to Thrymheim. Shall I write to him and say we shall accept?”

 

“And wade through puddles of my brother’s marital bliss?” Loki said idly. “How disgusting. I’d rather bathe in vomit.”

 

“But haven’t you heard anything?” said Fenja. “That’s been put off, possibly indefinitely.”

 

Loki went very still.

 

“What?”

 

Fenja rattled on unawares, happy to be dispensing gossip rather than delving into melancholy.

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole marriage was called off in the end,” said Fenja. “There’s something very twitchy in the air, and one never knows which way the wind will blow at a time like this. Everyone’s hedging their bets. It could be fizzle out to nothing. Or it could be a tremendous upset. The marriage is on hold. Is it a deliberate slight to Lord Thrym? Or is Lord Thrym staring down the king? Is he finally breaking his oath of fealty? And who knows what the king is thinking?”

 

“Who indeed?” said a low unruffled voice. Loki sat up with a start, almost toppling off the bed as Fenja jumped to his feet.

 

“Loki, child of my flesh, I would speak with you,” the Farbauti-king announced, and before he turned to settle in the receiving room, he gave Fenja a stern look. “My son will _not_ be visiting Thrymheim. Make no mistake about that, Fenja. There are more important things at hand.”

 

Loki had stopped, as if had been frozen at the threshold of his bedchamber, and stared unseeing at his dam.

 

“What things?”

 

“Sit with me, my child. Tell me, how are you faring? You look peaked. I shall send Skaaþr over with a choice suckling piglet to put some meat on your bones. You’ve gone rather pale and thin. It is a pretty look for now, but it will drain you in the end.”

 

Farbauti patted the seat beside him, but Loki didn’t budge.

 

“ _What_ things?” he demanded.

 

The Farbauti-king drew a deep breath, and turned to Loki with what he thought was a kindly smile. Loki shivered but stood his ground and Farbauti relented, attempting to appease his stony-eyed son above all else.

 

“Loki, my child,” said the Farbauti-king gently. “You are fond of your Asgardian, are you not?”

 

 

§

 

 

From the tower of ivory and crystal at the edge of the Jutla cliffs, the Bifrost sent them back to Asgard. The various landing sites offworld were never fixed as the central tower in Jotunheim, but the locations were close enough, and for Asgard this was on the outskirts of a grazing meadow from which Thor could see Odin’s hall. It was a quiet, peaceful location. At most one could expect a dozen goats or a lone hare hopping through the long grasses.

 

Thor had certainly not expected the small troop of soldiers in discreet brown cloaks and Balder, whose horse was playing with its bit and dancing in place nervously. At their head, looking grim and weather-beaten, was his father, Odin One-Eye, son of Borr.

 

The sudden surge of fondness Thor felt at seeing his father’s face was slowly eaten away by ire. Unbidden, the jotunn boy’s words came back to him.

 

 _Did you know, Thor, there hasn’t been a single letter negotiating your release from Odin Allfather_?

 

After weeks of abandoning Thor to his own devices in that frozen _hell_ , his father was here? Now? As if he had spared no effort to bring him home?

 

No. Thor grit his teeth, shaking off the petty words. He wouldn’t have that little viper poison his home-coming. This was his _family_ , and he loved them.

 

“Father,” said Thor, breaking into a smile of relief. But Odin cut him off.

 

“Don’t get too comfortable. You’re not staying for long,” said Odin Allfather. “We’re taking you straight back to Jotunheim.”

 

“Father!” Balder was aghast. “You can’t mean to rush him back so quickly. He’s barely had time to set foot in Asgard. He’s not even had a chance to see mother.”

 

“And what good will that do, tell me that,” said Odin gruffly. “He’s a grown man. Why should he go running back to hide inside mama’s skirts? Do you need to suckle on her teats some more, is that it, Thor? Do you need her to wipe your nose for you?”

 

Thor grit his teeth, holding back a wave of anger. His father had not grown any softer.

 

“At the very least, I would like to give her my regards, and ease her fears by showing her that I am well.”

 

“She has your regard already, and the ensign will send her word,” said Odin impatiently. “She knows how to wait until the time is right. She’s a good woman. Don’t you go blaming her for your sniveling weakness.”

 

“I was _not_ blaming _– !”_

Thor calmed himself down, at the look of panic on Balder’s face. Then, he noticed the provisions strapped in bundles to the horses. A strange sense of foreboding that had been troubling him since that night of the twelve challengers came back to demand attention.

 

Thor shook his head. “The animals wouldn’t survive the climate, not for the length of the stay you’ve planned, judging from your baggage.”

 

Odin gave him a measuring look. “You’ve improved.” He gave a signal to the captain. “We won’t be taking the horses, only half the retinue. We must strike while the iron is hot.”

 

“Strike? You plan on invading Jotunheim? With half a squadron? You’ve gone mad.”

 

Odin guffawed at that. “I see you’ve changed your tune. As I’ve said, you’ve improved, Thor. No, I’m not so foolish as that. We’re expected.” He paused, and before he could speak again, he burst into an alarming rattle of hacking and coughing, intermittently snarling at Balder who fussed over him.

 

Finally, Odin spat a sickly greenish yellowish gob onto the grass, and Thor caught the profile of the old man’s sunken cheeks, the lines etched deep in his hatchet-like face and felt a pang. For all his noise and bluster, his father was getting on with the years.

 

“I’ll be having a quiet drink with my sons before we head out,” said the old king, and he held out his hands to both of them, as he had done when they were young boys, and turned to walk up the slope to the goatherd’s shed under the pines.

 

 

 

The goatherd’s shed was barely large enough for the three. The rest of the company let their horses graze while Volstagg and Hogun sat down on either side of the rickety door to stand guard.

 

If they were to go onto Jotunheim, _again,_ Thor had argued that his friends at least should be allowed to return home to Asgard. Volstagg had looked guilty and eager – he had a family waiting for him – but Hogun had silently shaken his head.

 

Inside the shed, Balder looked anxious and fidgety, caught between Thor and their father. A veteran bystander of such clashes, he was steeling himself for the inevitable clash of wills. But Odin wasn’t caught in one of his inexplicable rages. If anything, the old man looked pleased.

 

“You’ve done well for yourself, I hear,” he said gruffly, and Thor was taken aback at this unexpected praise. His father was never one for easy affection with his sons, not the way Thor had seen Volstagg swing his children up, screaming and laughing, into hugs and kisses.

 

“I’ve come out of it alive,” said Thor. “If you meant to teach me about the perils of impatience and hasty planning, I’ve learned my lesson.”

 

“That’s not what I meant to say,” Odin raised his voice, then caught himself abruptly. Thor exchanged a wary glance with Balder as Odin tried for a smile. It came out looking more like a grimace.

 

“Laufey thinks highly of you – don’t let it get to your head, boy. You’ve got ways to go yet before you’re worth half the grain your poor mother grinds for your bread,” Odin added with a growl. “But that wily old schemer thinks you’ve got potential, and I won’t be the one telling him he’s got to check his eyesight for squint.”

 

Thor raised an eyebrow, waiting for his father to go on.

 

“He wants you.”

 

Like a mallet of ice, images of jotunn orgies crashed through his head, in such vivid detail that Thor felt that Balder and Odin could see them too, and a shameful burn stained his face until he was certain his whole head would catch fire.

 

“Wants….” he sputtered. “ _Wants_ me… _how_?”

 

Odin snorted at him, guessing at his meaning.

 

“Get your mind out of the whorehouse, pipsqueak. This isn’t about your degenerate love games. This is about _power_. The tide is turning for all the realms, and the stars are aligning in our favor. We could ride the crest of this wave to its zenith, if you just play along. Do you understand me?”

 

Thor nodded, then realizing he actually had no idea what his father was talking about, changed and shook his head.

 

“He wants an alliance, you thickheaded lout,” growled Odin, but his excitement was overpowering his annoyance. “Laufey wants you to marry his son. He wants to bring together the great houses of Jotunheim and Asgard. Do you understand now? Do you understand what this means?”

 

“His _son_ , father?” Balder interjected. “But Thor is a man –”

 

Odin all but snapped at his younger son. “Don’t bother me with your delicate virgin notions, boy. All jotunn get are sons. And all their sons are daughters, too. They’re useful that way, unlike you clods. Anyway, this isn’t about you. Thor here won’t mind. He’s fucked his way through whole bawdy houses full of whores – men, women, goats, pumpkins. He’s not that discriminating—”

 

“That is a filthy _lie!”_ roared Thor. “I’ve _never—”_

 

Balder’s discreet snort was not very discreet, and Thor wheeled around to glare at him.

 

“I’m sorry, Thor, but you’ve a rather seedy reputation,” said Balder, hiding a smile behind his hand. “But father, just because Thor’s tasted his dram of sin doesn’t mean he should be shipped off to _concubinage_ in Jotunheim, like some trained harlot. How do you know this bond isn’t meant to debase us?”

 

“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here, you puppy,” growled Thor, but Balder for all his petty stings wasn’t the villain of this piece. That title, as always, went to Odin One-eye. “And don’t I have any say in this?” demanded Thor. “What am I, some prize heifer you’ve arranged for stud service at the fair? Is that why you’ve kept me languishing in Jotunheim? So you could plot and scheme to use my plight to your advantage? So you could arrange to barter away my life as if I were some virgin maidservant? And what did you get in return? Gold? Horses? A new border agreement?”

 

“What are _you_ wailing on about?” shouted Odin. “I’m saying you did something right for a change! You’re marrying _up_. For some reason, Laufey’s thinking this next god-king is going to be you, Thor. And he wants his line to go on. That means binding you to _his_ son. Do you know what this means?”

 

Odin whirled on both his sons, but it was Thor who held his triumphant gaze. The old man was _beaming_.

 

“It means _you_ ’ _ll_ be stepping up to be the next king of Jotunheim!” cried Odin. “It means _you,_ Thor, will be the greatest king in all the Nine Realms. And that’ll give Asgard a chance to stand up straight and gather her strength for once. And it certainly won’t be thanks to your quick wits, you thickheaded lummox!”

 

 

§

 

 

For the space of two breaths he had been free and Thrym had been free, and Loki’s mind had been awhirl with possibilities again.

 

Then, the gates came crashing down upon him. But for that brief moment, Loki had tasted freedom and hope, and he wouldn’t forget it.

 

He knelt obediently next to his dam as the Farbauti-king cautiously informed him that he was to be promised to be married – here, Farbauti tripped over his words, as if he thought in saying it lightly and quickly, Loki wouldn’t feel the horrific impact of them – to that dull stinking beast of an Asgardian.

 

Clearly expecting anger or outrage or some sort of childish outburst, and seeing none of that forthcoming from his son, Farbauti went on, relieved.

 

“It may not be evident to you now, but the Asgardian has many finer qualities that will exactly suit your temper, my child.” Farbauti said, testing the ice and tentatively making his way forward. “Your elders know about such things. He is patient and good and kind, which are deep hidden treasures that do not shine with much flash when you are young, but prove to be of the greatest worth as the years go by. And besides you are past your best growth. I cannot say how relieved I am that your father has chosen someone closer to you in size, so you would not be hurt in the marriage bed –”

 

“Does father mean to shame me?” Loki asked quietly.

 

“Loki, child of my body, it hurts me beyond words to hear –”

 

“Does father mean to make a laughingstock of me before all the Realms? If not, what does he mean by marrying me to my dog?” Loki went on, his voice drained of emotion, clear and hard as iron nails. “Did you betray him with another that he should do this to me? Am I not father’s son? Did you lie with a slave? Or did you give yourself to beasts and defile yourself so wretchedly that father should throw me onto such a refuse heap? You feign to be so refined and pure. What did you do that father should –”

 

Loki stopped himself short, and with power and cold rage, stared down Farbauti’s raised hand as if with an invisible force. The blow never landed, and for the first time, Farbauti was afraid of his youngest.

 

He swallowed hard. “My child, you are angry, and you accuse me most unfairly, and your father as well. Your father and I only want what is _best_ for you, you will come to see this as true.”

 

“I think what you mean is, you want what is best for _you,_ ” said Loki. “As usual.”

 

And he rose from his seat and left the room without a backward glance at his parent, trying desperately to contain his rage. He had to seek out Angrboða. He had to find out if father _knew._

 

 

 

§

 

 

“But why _Thor_? All he did was get himself captured by the jotunns. Why would Laufey want to raise a prisoner, a _stranger_ , to the heights of king of Jotunheim? It doesn’t make sense.”

 

Balder’s voice came out as a whine, and hastily he cleared his throat.

 

“Jealous are you?” asked Odin. “All your talk of _concubinage_ and _harlots_ , and now you’re jealous of your brother’s good fortune? I expected better from you. You can go on home, then. I thought I was bringing him support. Looks like I was wrong, then.”

 

“I’m serious, father,” said Balder. “It’s not being jealous. Whatever Laufey wants, it cannot be for Thor’s own good. He’s _using_ him. Thor is but a _pawn_ –”

 

“Do you think I don’t know that?” roared Odin. “Do you think I’m stupid and gutless enough to just let my sons be _used_ without checking the corners first? Do you think I’m _Thor?”_

Thor growled at that, but Odin paid him no heed, caught up in shouting and shaking his fist at Balder.

 

“Maybe sometimes you’ve got to _let_ yourself be used,” Odin was going on. “Maybe sometimes you’ve got to let the big pieces let you play in their games according to _their_ rules. Then maybe that _pawn_ can get a chance to make something of himself, and maybe if he plays the game right, maybe he’ll reach the end of the board. Then maybe that little pawn will turn into a _king!”_

“Calm down, old man,” said Thor. “You’ll keel over frothing at the mouth if you keep it up. It’s not Balder’s fault he can’t read your mind.”

 

“Besides, father,” Balder said snidely. “It’s not the _king_ , the pawn turns into, but a _queen_. Which I suppose is fitting, considering the circumstances.”

 

“It’s still the most powerful piece on the board, you idiot,” grumbled Odin, and with a harrumph, he slumped back in the rickety chair and pounded his fist on the table top to relieve his feelings. Thor poured him another drink, and the old man tossed it back in one.

 

“What’s the game, then?” asked Thor evenly, and Odin’s wily old face broke into a smile.

 

“That’s my boy,” he grunted. “What do you remember learning about the jotunn throne? That is if you weren’t dozing off all those years in the schoolroom.”

 

“I know enough,” said Thor. “There’s the line of kings, and then there’s the strength that’s wed into it. That is why there are two kings, the blood and the power.”

 

Odin nodded. “Right. Now, three-hundred and seventy odd years ago, the throne of Jotunheim was up for grabs, and Laufey was first in line for the grabbing of it. But he wasn’t alone. He had himself a mighty rival, a great general from the north, filthy rich and powerful besides. These two came to a clash on the plains and locked horns. Now, you know what happens when two jotunns fight it out, don’t you Thor?” The old man’s grin turned to a leer.

 

“The winner takes the loser,” said Thor, ignoring the shocked blush that crawled up Balder’s cheeks as he mouthed, horrified, _takes?_

“That’s the way it goes,” said Odin, nodding satisfied. “It spares slaughtering the armies of your rival afterwards. They don’t always surrender, with a neat little game over, go home. So, even if by some slim margin, Laufey claimed victory on the plain – and there’s some who say he won by trickery, others who say he cheated, that wily old snake – he couldn’t have walked out, then waged another bloody war. It would have sunk Jotunnheim into chaos and ruin, centuries of it.”

 

“So they go the way of the ice,” said Thor. “The two rivals fight and they wed, and both take the throne. It establishes stability, and peace.”

 

“Laufey went on to marry the son of the king,” said Odin, “and secured his claim to the throne. He needed legitimacy. _And_ he needed to weave together the power and the blood.”

 

“That makes sense,” said Balder, puzzled. “The conquering warrior marries the royal line. Both are kings. I don’t understand why there’s a problem.”

 

“This rival, the powerful warrior who met Laufey on the plains,” said Thor slowly. “This was not Farbauti, was it?”

 

Odin’s smile grew even wider.

 

“No. Farbauti was the sweet-faced son of the last king. They say that clever Laufey was mad for love of him. How touching,” Odin sneered. “Of course, the bards will come up with the sweetest rhymes, after the smoke has cleared from the charred ruins of your family. They say Laufey dragged Farbauti out to the courtyard, threw him on the bloody carcass of his father and fucked him upon it while he screamed, and from that the delicate boy-prince grew heavy with their first child –”

 

“ _Laufey_ bore their first child and their second as well,” Thor interrupted, before his father got carried away with his gruesome story-telling. “And both of them in peace time. Farbauti only carried their youngest, and that was years after they’d both ruled from the throne.”

 

Odin waved him off. “No matter. Laufey’s happy marriage bed isn’t the problem here. What is the problem is who was left out of it.”

 

“Who’d want to be _in_ it?” muttered Balder, but Thor leaned forward.

 

“Vindsval,” he whispered.

 

“Vindsval,” said Odin, and he jerked his head at Balder to pour him another cup of wine.

 

“The legend of the god-king?” asked Balder. “But he’s… a _legend._ Long dead if he ever lived at all. What does he have to do with anything?”

 

“Laufey invoked the legend to justify his choice,” said Odin. “The blood and the power, you need both for the throne of the god-kings. But there was only power. Neither of the warriors was born the son of the king. One custom, the practical one, dictated that the winner wed his rival to bring about a close to the bloody civil war. But Laufey didn’t. He dredged up even older lore.”

 

“My heart lies with another,” said Thor. “One who is pure and undefeated.”

 

“Laufey’s rival had greater armies at his beck, and they would have overrun the capitol, regardless of the outcome of the duel. Laufey had won on the plains, however slightly, however equivocally, but that was in single-combat. He didn’t have the power to hold back the armies. He should have married his rival. Instead, he married the blood.

 

“The armies of his rival should have risen up to sack the city. They should have laid waste to the capitol. But they didn’t. Because Laufey invoked Vindsval, and because his rival was honorable enough to accept it and to bring forth peace. The general had his army stand down, bowed his head and swore fealty.”

 

“The rival general should have been king,” insisted Balder. “Clearly, he’s the better man, a much more noble one. Even if he is a jotunn.”

 

Odin laughed at him. “You little fool, is your brain made of cheese?”

 

Odin nursed his nugget of a secret for a moment longer before he leaned forward, beckoning his sons closer.

 

“Better men don’t get to be kings, son. They just end up dead. But this rival general wasn’t as great a fool as you. He exacted a promise from the new king. That when the time came, and the land stirred again, that he would marry Laufey’s son and become king after Laufey. And until then, he would bend his knee. Two great brutes fought for the throne, and then agreed on how to carve out their time on it, that’s all there is to it. All the stories about love and chivalry and valor, that’s just so much horse piss, and don’t you forget that, Balder.”

 

Balder fidgeted uncomfortably at this, but he didn’t interrupt. With a grim satisfaction, Odin went on.

 

“And now, that devious, untrustworthy whoreson of a snake, Laufey, plans to cheat his rival again, while pretending it’s all sunshine and roses on the surface. Which is why, I reckon, he’s got this general promised to one son, and now he’s pulling in Thor to marry another one. Keep two big dogs snarling, keeping each other at bay, while he holds onto his power. You’ve got to admit, there’s a lot to admire about the bastard.”

 

“You would,” grumbled Thor. “So, I am to marry Helblindi, then? The eldest prince?”

 

Odin waved him off. “No, no. The eldest eloped years ago to marry a little nobody for love. He’s completely useless. The second is betrothed to the rival.”

 

“Lord Thrym,” said Thor. “Then, you mean the youngest…. _No!”_

“Laufey and Farbauti’s youngest is called Loki,” said Odin. “And he’s rumored to be the brightest of the lot. And not bad to look at either.”

 

“He’s but a _child,_ ” said Thor. “He’s a child barely out of the nursery.”

 

“He could be a parakeet, for all the good it’ll do you,” snarled Odin. “You’ll be wed to the brat, and that’s the end of it.”

 

“But he _hates_ me,” Thor protested, and try as he might, he couldn’t keep the note of hurt out of his voice. “He would hate this, and he would fight it all the way until he’s broken. I _know_ this. Father, there will be no love in it, not even afterwards. It won’t be like you and mother –”

 

“Love?” roared Odin. “ _Love?_ Are you sick in the head? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying? You have a chance to be _king_. The greatest king in all the Realms. Turn his head with pretty words, ply him with presents, bring him around. Tell him the sun and moon and stars rise and fall in the light of his eyes. _Lie to him_ , you idiot. Are you asking for courting advice from your grizzled old father?”

 

“Lie to him,” said Thor grimly. “Make him love me. And then, after I’ve played with this child’s heart, then what?”

 

“And then, once the contracts are signed, and the marriage is done, tuck him in and sing him lullabies, or make your own babies on that baby, it’s none of my concern. But make sure this marriage happens, Thor. Do it for Asgard.”

 

 

§

 

 

The witch was nowhere to be found. Loki had scoured the palace twice over, and he had caught not a glimpse of Angrboða.

 

He was short of breath when he came to look out upon the plains – he’d gone soft and weak in his idleness, Loki berated himself – but the first flush of rage had died down to an ember and he felt calmer now, as he turned his situation over and over in his head. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t impulsive. He wasn’t a fool like Býleistr. He was _Loki_ , and he would play this game out to his advantage.

 

So, it was a test of control when he saw that he wasn’t alone. Before him, looking out at the speck of dark that was growing larger on the plain of ice, was Lord Thrym, tall and somber. Loki’s heart beat like a trapped rabbit, but he remained still.

 

And he willed himself to be calmer still as he silently made his way along the walls and stood beside the great warlord.

 

When Thrym turned to him, his face softening with a tender smile – _he loves me, I was wrong to doubt it, he loves me –_ Loki thought the rabbit would kick its way out of his chest, but he schooled his features, imitating the unperturbed manner of his dam, and bowed his head slightly.

 

“Asgard,” he said, nodding at the moving speck, which had grown to the size of a blot, and Lord Thrym became grim again.

 

“Aye, once again they are upon us.” Lord Thrym offered his elbow, and Loki took it, taking comfort in the politeness of the gesture. “Once again, we let them advance as we bide our time and wait.”

 

“It seems Lord Thrym that you do little else but wait,” he mocked, and Thrym stared at him, surprised at the sudden sharpness. “Perhaps, this time you should reach out and _take_ what you want _,_ before others take it away from you.”

Thrym looked unsettled at his possible meaning, and Loki found himself smiling at the stab of pain he felt inside. _Turn it outward,_ _turn the knife_ _outward, and rip your foe before it rips you._ But this was no foe. This was his Thrym.

 

“I’ve already done enough of taking,” said Thrym shame-faced, and for the first time Loki felt a twinge of contempt.

 

“I am saying, Lord Thrym,” said Loki. “That you are allowed to take. That is, if you are man enough to be king. Or will you have this dog of the Aesir rule over us? I won’t have it. If you’re not strong enough to take the throne, and _me_ , I’ll find someone else who can.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ETA] note: Feb 20, 2013
> 
> Due to real life work commitments, I shall have to go on fic-hiatus until ~~April 20th, September, December, oh, blast, no one will want it by then.~~
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Once I get some RL work out the door, I'll try to pick up the strands from there, even as I acknowledge that overall interest might have waned by then.~~
> 
>  
> 
>  ~~But if I do at all, it's for you guys who are still reading and might even then still be waiting. Because who else will I do it for?~~  
>   
>  To the readers, from the bottom of my alone-y writer's heart: bless you.
> 
> [ETA] 2016  
> Dear anyone rattling around this abandoned house, a thousand apologies. You might have gotten a feeling that the author has left this building, and you're right about that. I used to think, once I'm done with RL projects, I'll get back to this, but it looks like it'll take all my effort to get my RL work looking even remotely like I want it to look like. And, as I tell myself often, I am a bear with a little brain. I need the whole noggin to wrangle it into shape. 
> 
> So, this one looks like it will be left unfinished. I am sorry about that. But isn't it great that there's so much fabulous fic out there? And new fandoms. 
> 
> cheers y'all


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